Today, September 4, 218, was World Art Drop Day, an event held annually in an attempt to make the world a better place and bring the community together. Artists created artworks and then hid them throughout their city/town (in our case, Westfield), then posted clues on social media art drop sites and local pages and then sat back waiting to see who found their art.
Art Drop Day is like a town-wide scavenger hunt for decent art!
I got up early, still suffering from a migraine and a bad night's sleep, showered, dressed for work, ate breakfast, grabbed my art to drop, and headed out onto the road where I was soon entangled in a snarl of first day back to school busses and commuter traffic. I made it to Hampton Ponds Plaza where I was surprised by the number of cars in the lot at 7:20AM, but evidently there's a day care there. Dodging a few vehicles, I pulled up in front of the giant planter in front of Millie's Pizza (our new go to pizza parlor) and nestled the packaged first black squirrel pen & ink drawing "Rat Tail" and a signed copy of The Hanging Man and Other Stories at the front of the plantar, then snapped a picture, parked in a real spot, and posted a few clues before driving off.
Kelly had not been able to drop her art where she had originally intended to, so she snagged my second drop location because it was on her way to work and open so, on the fly, I had to think of a second location for the other black squirrel pen and ink drawing "Fluffy Tail". I thought of Westfield Feed on nearby Union Street, so zipped over there only to discover that the store opens at 8AM and I had to be at work for eight o'clock. An employee inside saw me and hurried to a loading dock door to shout to me to hang on, he'd unlock the door. I quickly explained about Art Drop Day, how people would come into the store asking for the art, but it was the first person to ask gets the prize. He was more than happy to participate! A quick snap of a picture, and off to work I went where I posted the clues and picture to a couple sites before rushing inside to punch in.
I was thrilled by the rapid response to locating our art works. One art seeker snagged Rat Tail and the book, then hurried to Kelly's Home & Garden to grab Kelly's pen & ink railroad logo attached to a framed print copy of her short, short Ghost Train story (published in our joint anthology Disturbing). She was unable to get Fluffy Tail, someone else had beat her to it even though she was so close by!
I enjoyed watching posts pop up of more art being dropped, of more people finding the art all throughout the day. Art Drop Day is an event that brings the community together. Hopefully as we in Westfield continue to participate in World Art Drop Day more artists will become involved and more people will hear about it and come out to treasure hunt!
We appreciate all the artists who participated and all the businesses that welcomed the artists and happily handed over the art works to the first person through the door who asked. We also appreciate the artists who hid their treasures outside of businesses and posted clues that were not frustrating and difficult to figure out.
Happy Art Drop Day! Kelly and I are definitely doing this again next year!
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