#TakeASketchLeaveASketch

Last week was the slightly rainy opening of Nature Art in the Park. As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I am pretty new to creating nature art (art made from natural materials) and public art (art displayed in a public place). I should also say I have never made an interactive piece before, but came up with the idea to build a nature inspired interactive mailbox. I built the box from found branches and bark, filled it with handmade recycled paper, left instructions for visitors take a sketch and leave a sketch, and encouraged them to tweet their sketches using the hashtag #TakeASketchLeaveASketch. I planned to upload all the Twitter photos to a page on my website over the course of the Nature Art in the Park exhibition. After much hard work, I completed the piece, installed it, and hoped for the best.

#TakeASketchLeaveASketch on opening day, May 19, 2013

Because of the weather, not that many people visited my piece at the opening, but I did meet one person who sketched the following and put it into the mailbox. I was happy that the project was underway.

The first sketch.

The weather continued to be quite rainy throughout the week, and there hadn't been any tweets after the first sketch, so I decided to check on my piece yesterday. I was surprised at what I found:

Nest in #TakeASketchLeaveASketch

There was a bird's nest inside! To be fair, I modeled this piece after different birdhouses I looked at, but I didn't think a bird would take it so seriously. I called the organizer of Nature Art in the Park, and she suggested I rename this piece, put a "do not disturb" sign next to it, and make a new, more secure box to carry out my original idea. That sounded good to me, because if I took the bird's nest out, I am pretty sure another one would come around and use it later.

So, for now, #TakeASketchLeaveASketch has been temporarily derailed, but hopefully in a week or two I will have the second version finished and ready for action. If you would like to see (but not touch) this original #TakeASketchLeaveASketch art piece, find it on Trail D at Leakin Park.

Also, let me know if you would like me to make you a birdhouse.