Lost Art #24: rue Montmartre, Paris

Hello everyone! 

I hope you're all taking advantage of this beautiful spring by going out to search for abandoned artworks in the streets! With the weather a little more suited to longer walks, I've been trying to expand my reach a little lately. This week I found myself up in the 2nd near the rue Montmartre. While I was working on this piece, I was approached by a very sweet man who lived on the streets in the neighborhood. He said that he had found a pen recently and that he wanted to donate it to my cause. So now, thanks to my new friend, I have a new pen in my collection of Lost-Art-making supplies :). He left before I could get his name, but he wished me luck and he made my day. It would be nice if he turned out to be the one who found my painting! But if not, I'm sure that whoever does will give it a nice home. As for me, I'll have to make sure to use my new pen in my next piece! Thank you all for staying tuned, and if you live in a neighborhood I haven't been to yet, I'm always open to suggestions!

This painting, acrylic on found corrugated cardboard packaging,  17 cm x  35 cm, was left on the small place between the intersections of rue Montmartre, rue d'Aboukir, and rue du Louvre in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris on May 12th, 2015 at 6:30pm.

If you have found this piece, please let me know in the comments!

Click here to View Lost Art #24 in a larger map

Lost Art #22: Rue Bichat, Paris

Springtime is finally starting to show some hints of its arrival, so I guess that means it's time to start spending some more afternoons painting on trash in the streets :). I'm trying to get into some other parts of the city, a little farther from my own neighborhood, which means the walks are getting longer. But hopefully it also means that different people are getting the chance to find one of these pieces lying around. If you live in Paris and want to suggest a neighborhood for my next painting, please feel free to let me know in the comments. I try to spread the love around! I left this one on the rue Bichat in the 11th, where I often go to draw with a friend of mine. It's a view of the Hopital Saint-Louis not far from the canal. As always, let me know if you find it! 

This painting, acrylic on found oriented strand board, 67.5 cm x 36.5 cm, was left on the rue Bichat, near the intersection of rue Richerand, in the 11th arrondissement of Paris on March 29, 2015 at 4:30pm.

If you have found this piece, please let me know in the comments!

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Lost Art #9: Avenue de France, Paris

Lost Art makes its triumphant return to Paris, France this week! 

I'm very happy to report that Lost Art #8 was found and given a home last week in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania on my trip to the United States. You can read all about that one here. 

Today's painting, #9, is on a bench overlooking the train tracks on Avenue de France, near the intersection of rue George Balanchine, in the neighborhood between Bibliothèque and the Pont de Bercy. As always, there's a map below to help you out if you're searching for it! I'm excited to be back in Paris and hoping that some of the paintings I do here over the summer will be discovered. Be sure to sign up for the blog if you want receive all the updates!

This painting, oil on found plywood, 32 1/2cm x 14cm, was left on Avenue de France on July 7, 2014 at 12:00pm.

If you have found this piece, please let me know in the comments!

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Lost Art #2: Place de l'Émir Abd el-Kader, Paris

Hello again! It's time for Lost Art #2!

No word yet about the fate of the first piece, but the project continues...

This painting, oil on found wood, 23.5cm x 13.5cm, 
was left at the  Place de l'Émir Abd el-Kader in Paris on May 18, 2014 at 4pm. 

If you have found this piece, please let me know in the comments!

View Lost Art #2: Place de l'Émir Abd el-Kader in a larger map

An Introduction to Lost Art...

I've always had a hard time letting go, especially of my work. I've always been afraid that once it left my possession my work would somehow get lost, or thrown out, or forgotten, or in some way cease to exist. And I imagine that this fear is rooted in my fear that I too will someday cease to exist. And if my work is what I hope to leave behind, then I must do everything in my power to protect it, right? But this protectiveness I felt toward my work eventually became a crippling burden. I didn't want to show my art, or sell it, and at some point, I didn't even want to do it. I started getting protective of my ideas before they even left my mind. I was shrinking away from the very interaction with the outside world that I so desperately craved. I needed to do something to get back on the horse, to open the channels of creativity and exchange. I had to find a way to let go. And this is how I conceived the Lost Art project.

Being a bit of a pack rat, I have for years collected materials from the streets. Any time I saw a smooth piece of wood, a nice chunk of marble, a large strip of fabric, I would gather it up and carry it back to my little basement studio, where I would horde it in piles, imagining that someday it would be made into something even more beautiful than it already was. But that day didn't seem to be coming, and the piles just seemed to be growing. So, facing the possibility that I would simply run out of space in my cave, I decided to start releasing these acquisitions back into the wild. But not before I found a way to put my mark on them.

I decided that I would take these things I'd found in the street, these bits of wood or canvas or plastic, and paint on them. I would paint the scenes that I'd seen in the streets where I'd found them. And then, after letting the paintings dry for a few days, I would take the objects back out into the street where they were found and simply leave them at the locations where I'd painted on them. You know, because, if you love something set it free, right? I needed to experience the freedom of turning these paintings loose into the world and being forced to make peace with whatever might become of them.

I assume that some of them will be thrown out, some will be damaged or destroyed, and some will merely go unnoticed for countless cold and rainy nights. But I also have the hope that maybe a few of them will be discovered and find homes. Just as these objects appeared to me as 'found art,' they will now be lost again, and perhaps they will go on to be found once more. And perhaps their new owners will even turn them into new works of art, or give them totally different functions altogether. The important thing is that they will go on to have lives after me, and after my artistic relationship with them. Their stories will not just end in my basement, in a whirlpool of anal-retentive self-doubt.

But despite my relinquishing control over the destinies of these objects, I will remain curious about whether they are ever found, or appreciated, or hated or loved. They are, after all, things that have passed through the inside of me, and they now carry with them some trace of my vulnerability and insecurity off into the streets, wherever they go. So I have marked the back of each one with the title of the project, and the internet address for this blog, in the hopes that anybody who finds one of them might get in touch and let me know what has become of the work. 

In each blog post, I will include a photo of the painting, and a map to where I've left it, so that anybody who has found one will be able to recognize what they've found. Then hopefully, we will get some news from the future lives of these pieces. Perhaps we will see a photo or two of a painting in its new home, or one that has been damaged and salvaged, or even one that has been painted over by an artist who fancies their own vision more than mine and is happy to have discovered a new canvas on which to work. And surely, there will also be a few that are never heard from again. But I won't be able to predict or control which ones. And that's what I'm in it for. It's like art shock therapy. 

So if you're interested to see where the project goes, and what does or doesn't become of the paintings as I deposit them back into their native environments, please sign up to follow the blog. If none of the pieces are heard from again, I'll still be interested to hear whether you think the project is worth doing. And if you find one of the pieces, please do whatever you wish with it, but make sure to visit the blog and tell us all about it!