For years now I have been hiding tiny sculptures, paintings and messages around town for people to find. I think of them as love notes. It began at a time when I was working with a friend who has Alzheimer’s, a celebrated Canadian artist whose memory of her career has been erased by the disease. At that time she could still travel around the city, and we would go for walks or coffee, and I helped her buy groceries. I would have a pocket full of love notes. We would decide together where to hide them in the store. Behind the pickles? Among the tomatoes?
I’ve tried handing them out directly now and then, but that can be unpredictable. Once when I was staying in Los Angeles for a few months, I went up to a woman in a community garden in Santa Monica offering a mini artwork, and she got scared. People are never afraid of me, I don’t think, but I guess my delivery was off that day.
Mostly I just leave these pieces to be found anonymously. I get the same pleasure out of it as having a piece up on a gallery wall, when it comes right down to it.