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On some level, all art is found art.  What is typically referred to as "found art", though, simply follows a more direct process.  It arrives already created, or at least almost so, in most cases.  Here’s an example from my own experience…

I had just finished at the gym one day and was walking to my car.  As I approached the car, I happened to look down, and there at my feet was an old shoelace--probably a remnant from someone’s just-as-old gym shoe.  But just as it is ordinary paint that makes both mundane art and masterpieces, this shoelace, ordinary as it was, had fallen into the most interesting pattern.  Dampened by drizzle, stiffened by sun, flattened by the tires of countless unaware cars, pocked with grit and perfectly frayed at both ends…I found it to be surprisingly beautiful!

As an artist, one of my primary tasks while painting is to protect beauty once it appears on my canvas so as to keep it from unwittingly being undone by further work.  So with the shoelace, I lovingly peeled the work of art from the pavement so as not to undo what had been so beautifully set in place.

Once home, I enjoyed so much what I had found that I mounted, signed and framed it.  Subsequently, others shared my enjoyment as well.  My humble shoelace has made multiple trips from the West Coast to the East Coast and back again to be exhibited in galleries and museums.  It's title...By Magic.

The whole story of the shoelace is very much like the story of art making.  A gift comes magically from somewhere.  An artist accepts it, loves it, then passes it on.

--Don Haggerty

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All Images Copyright © 2001/12 Don Haggerty

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