MONROE - Four women sat around a plastic fold-out table cutting paper and uncapping markers, making little art projects they will later abandon in Monroe or anywhere they like. The shearing sound of scissors on paper and occasional pop of a marker cap Tuesday night in the Monroe Arts Center sounded reminiscent of a preschool art session.
"It is, it really is," Sarah Aslakson said of the suggestion.
Aslakson pieced together a folded, white piece of paper into an angel. Aslakson, a painter, said making art to abandon is new to her.
The Abandoned Art Project was fostered by Deb Meyer, who owns an art studio in Browntown. Meyer said she heard about the national movement from one of her art students in Madison. She decided to bring the idea back to the Driftless Area Artists as a challenge to connect the Monroe community with art.
"It's a neat thing for the community to bring them together in the realm of art; it's kind of like an Easter egg hunt," Meyer said.
Meyer said she tried out her own abandoned art, painted on a 3.5-inch by 3.5-inch piece of canvass that she left on a table in a coffee shop in Madison. She waited for somebody to pick it up, and eventually a man sat down and picked it up.
"I saw him smile and read the card, and then he calls his wife and she came down, and then he went up to the manager and asked if it was for him," Meyer said.
The bits and pieces of art may or may not have contact information of the people who left them, but Meyer encourages people to post to social media or tell someone about their discovery.
Some of the women at MAC made construction paper booklets with little pockets that hold even smaller pieces of art to scatter about. Tiny paintings or newspaper clippings, or bits of paper glued together, fill the booklets. Helen Stauffer measured and cut out a dark green colored piece of paper for her booklet. Her forest-green bracelet clacked against the plastic table as she made deliberate, precise cuts. The color of the booklet almost matched her olive shirt and pants.
"I know Helen, she won't be done by tonight," Joan Stackpole joked.
Stackpole wandered between tables passing out glue and scissors and rifling through her bag of supplies. Her booklet had buttons glued to paper, a solitary earing - its partner missing - and a small painting of a bass. Stackpole said the flopping bass with a green watercolor background, about the size of a business card, came from a painting she had done previously that was partly successful and some parts "that weren't so successful."
"I'm not trying to get rid of bad art; it's just little things I can give away," Stackpole said.
The bits of art come with a little card with an elaborate mauve background and black lettering. It reads, "Today the Universe has picked you," and encourages those who have found a piece of art to take it home with them.
Aslakson finishes taping up her paper angel with much tinkering around its legs, trying to get it to stand on its own. She resorts to adding a twine-string to loop the angel and fix it to something.
"OK, let's do art," she said.
Aslakson went outside the center with pieces of scotch tape hanging off her fingers and stuck her angel to the sign out front.
"If it rains, it's a goner," she said.
"It is, it really is," Sarah Aslakson said of the suggestion.
Aslakson pieced together a folded, white piece of paper into an angel. Aslakson, a painter, said making art to abandon is new to her.
The Abandoned Art Project was fostered by Deb Meyer, who owns an art studio in Browntown. Meyer said she heard about the national movement from one of her art students in Madison. She decided to bring the idea back to the Driftless Area Artists as a challenge to connect the Monroe community with art.
"It's a neat thing for the community to bring them together in the realm of art; it's kind of like an Easter egg hunt," Meyer said.
Meyer said she tried out her own abandoned art, painted on a 3.5-inch by 3.5-inch piece of canvass that she left on a table in a coffee shop in Madison. She waited for somebody to pick it up, and eventually a man sat down and picked it up.
"I saw him smile and read the card, and then he calls his wife and she came down, and then he went up to the manager and asked if it was for him," Meyer said.
The bits and pieces of art may or may not have contact information of the people who left them, but Meyer encourages people to post to social media or tell someone about their discovery.
Some of the women at MAC made construction paper booklets with little pockets that hold even smaller pieces of art to scatter about. Tiny paintings or newspaper clippings, or bits of paper glued together, fill the booklets. Helen Stauffer measured and cut out a dark green colored piece of paper for her booklet. Her forest-green bracelet clacked against the plastic table as she made deliberate, precise cuts. The color of the booklet almost matched her olive shirt and pants.
"I know Helen, she won't be done by tonight," Joan Stackpole joked.
Stackpole wandered between tables passing out glue and scissors and rifling through her bag of supplies. Her booklet had buttons glued to paper, a solitary earing - its partner missing - and a small painting of a bass. Stackpole said the flopping bass with a green watercolor background, about the size of a business card, came from a painting she had done previously that was partly successful and some parts "that weren't so successful."
"I'm not trying to get rid of bad art; it's just little things I can give away," Stackpole said.
The bits of art come with a little card with an elaborate mauve background and black lettering. It reads, "Today the Universe has picked you," and encourages those who have found a piece of art to take it home with them.
Aslakson finishes taping up her paper angel with much tinkering around its legs, trying to get it to stand on its own. She resorts to adding a twine-string to loop the angel and fix it to something.
"OK, let's do art," she said.
Aslakson went outside the center with pieces of scotch tape hanging off her fingers and stuck her angel to the sign out front.
"If it rains, it's a goner," she said.