Art Abandonment, Part Two

Over the course of several days, I abandoned all six of the altered matchboxes I glued, painted, and sewed for this project.  I have now posted them all in the Facebook group  Art Abandonment.

#1--On Wednesday I left the first one on a bench in Colonial Williamsburg, Va.

I watched this woman with a lot of bags sit down right next to it and she didn't even notice it!  *Sigh*  After that I decided to make the rest of them more prominent by adding a fluorescent-yellow index card with the words "Free Art!" to the packages.

#2--On Thursday I abandoned the next one near the hand of a famous American...

...Thomas Jefferson, also in Colonial Williamsburg (which shall henceforth be referred to as "CW"!)

#3--On Friday I walked unnoticed to the upper floor of the public library and left this matchbox on a computer keyboard in the Art section.  (Clever, huh?)  There was no one else upstairs, so it might have taken a while to be noticed.

#4--On my way back to the car, I stopped outside the library in the pretty area with fountains and a pergola.  I left this matchbox on the seat of a chair.  There it is, on the chair on the right.

#5--On Saturday my daughter Jenna came with me as I returned to drop off the last two altered matchboxes in CW.  Can you see this one on the bench in front of Jenna's knee?

#6--I left the last one on yet another bench in CW.  I think the best way to abandon art in a crowd is to sit down and casually set the art beside you; then wait a moment to be sure no one is looking at you, and walk away.  (You want to be sure no one is looking so they don't yell "Hey lady, you forgot something!" and come running after you with the art!)

So far there haven't been any e-mails saying the art has been found.  It would be interesting to continue doing this just to see how many I have to abandon before I get a response!   Of course, the point is to set the art free with no expectations other than the hope that someone will find it and love it.  Getting an e-mail from the finder would just be icing on the cake.

Art Abandonment, Part One

For several months I have been a member of a Facebook group called Art Abandonment.  It was started by a well-known artist named Michael deMeng; you can read how it all got started on his blog, Assemblog of Michael deMeng.  Basically, we are a group of people who make all different sorts of art, and occasionally leave our art in public places for any random stranger to find and keep.  You can join the group too, if you like; you just have to put in a request to join.  When you are approved, you can post comments and pictures there.

This week I finally had time to work on some art, and I spent a couple of blissful hours making six altered matchboxes to abandon. You might remember that I posted a picture of a matchbox with a winged heart on top, that I made as a trial run about a month ago.  I like that matchbox, but I like these new ones even better!  Here they are in all their eye-popping brightness:

Today I will show you how I made them.  In a couple of days I will show you where I left them (I still have two that I plan to abandon tomorrow.)

Start with empty matchboxes.  You can find a package of 10 in most grocery stores for about a dollar.  (What you do with all those matches is up to you!)  I covered my boxes with pages from a discarded book, but scrapbook paper would also be great.  I used an X-acto knife to cut the pages from the book, and to cut the paper to size.  Scotch brand Quick Dry Adhesive is the name of the glue I used to adhere the paper to the boxes.

To decorate them, it helps to have a pile of bright fabric scraps like the one below:

I made a little fabric collage for the top of each box, starting with a base fabric cut to the size of the box top. Then I cut bits of fabric and arranged them in pleasing combinations on the base, and topped each one with a fabric heart.  All the edges are left raw.  I carefully moved each collage to the sewing machine and stitched all around the edges with a contrasting thread--in this case, purple worked well for all of them.

I made hearts to go inside the boxes the same way:  starting with a base heart, I added scraps of other fabrics until I was pleased with the composition.  Then I topped each one with the question "got art?" stamped onto purple fabric.  After sewing around the edges of the collages, I added a back to each heart and hand-sewed it in place, stopping to stuff each one before closing the seam.

I wanted the inside of the matchboxes to be a little more interesting, so I cut out hearts and wings from scrapbook paper and glued them inside.  Then I brushed a thin, uneven coat of white acrylic paint over the entire matchbox, inside and out.  When the paint was dry, I glued the fabric collage to the top  of the matchbox and put the stuffed heart inside.

Below you can see an open matchbox with the tags that accompany each one.  They include an e-mail address that is monitored by someone at the Facebook group, so the person who finds the art can let us know it has been found.

Below you can see how I send each of my matchboxes out into the world, safely enclosed in a plastic bag.  I hope each one will brighten someone's day!

Ten More Bags, and a Big Decision

You might remember this post last April, when I did a "show and tell" of the bags I made for Dale of Dale's Floral Designs in the small town of Warsaw, Virginia.  She likes my bags, and so do her customers, so she ordered 10 more bags!  As she did with the previous order, Dale went fabric shopping and sent me a quarter-yard of ten different prints.  I made these bags, using fabrics from my "stash" to augment the fabrics she sent.

From left to right, they are Oriental floral, roses, Gerbera daisies, and cardinals:

Here we have hummingbirds, palm trees, and autumn leaves:

These are red berries, Christmas snowflakes, and leopard print:

Again, I think Dale did a great job of choosing fabrics, and I love all these bags.  (My favorite is the red berries!)


Now for the big decision.  I have been thinking about this for many months, and...

 I've finally decided to close my sewing business! 

What that means for me is that I will no longer spend long hours making large numbers of the same thing.  This will free me to be more creative with my sewing (for myself, family, friends, and swaps), and it will give me time to explore the areas of art that I'm interested in.  For example, I just joined a facebook group called Art Abandonment, with members from all over the world who make pieces of artwork to leave in public places for strangers to find and take and enjoy.  I desperately want to abandon some art, but first I have to make something! 

So, I've told Dale that I will do one more bag order for her before I close; I will close my Etsy store as soon as I get around to it; and I've told Pat at Country Treasures that I will clear out my booth at the end of July.  (I got a phone call from her, asking me to bring in one more batch of my Scrappy Fabric Bracelets.  Apparently there is an older woman who comes in frequently, and she buys these bracelets for gifts...they want to be sure she has all she wants before I close!)

For those of you who are interested in the financial aspect of it...I will say that selling my handmade items has never been very profitable, mainly because I have a hard time charging what my goods are worth.  I have always geared my prices toward what the "average" person could easily spend.  When you add in things like paying for a business license, business property tax, self-employment tax, insurance, and the paperwork hassle of collecting and remitting sales tax, it just isn't worth it any more.  It's time to free myself from this!

I'm looking forward to making new things, and blogging all about them here!