Found: most places
You have to move a lot when they keep selling your studio too.
J had just placed the stencil in position.
It was probably the noise that caught her attention first. She glanced up and saw a human form engulfed by a swarm of pigeons, moving slowly towards her.
A small figure stopped near where she was working and started talking. J couldn’t understand her words because they were overwhelmed by 100 wings flapping.
J quickly finished the stencil.
The old lady dumped her seed.
Something spooked the pigeons, they rose up into the air and the stencil followed
in the up-draft.
As they both departed she realised what the old lady was saying
“I don’t put the seed on the foot path”.
J had been ready to reply, “I only stencil rubbish”.
“You’re not wrong about that” he said, as he took a slug out of the bottle.
She said, “I wanna put it on the wall” as she snatched the stencil and made a lurch for the spray can.
“No way”, J said and grabbed the stencil back.
Another bean bag spills it’s guts.
After
The blokes outside the plumbing shop were watching as the stencil went down. One guy said “what’s that, some sort of electric bed?” The others didn’t say anything.
Before
Vale St: When J flipped the mattress base over she thought it was a stencil. On closer inspection it was a series of tiny burnt holes. There was a control panel built into the side panel.
Found: in the park at the St Kilda Foreshore by a person unknown.
Contents: Three, one pound notes, one shirt button and one Situations Vacant Column from the Argus Newspaper – January 1957
Cracks in the Pavement observes that if any of art works are not found they will weather and change in the landscape. This is not the fate of ‘Stash’. All three pieces were found. If the remaining two are not understood, I hope the one pound notes are exchanged at the currency shop and the finder/keeper has a good drink on me. After all you can’t dictate how people respond to art.
Heather found this work and wrote:
“I have to admit I was most intrigued when I came across a small package containing some money (old pound notes), a cotton patch and thread, and a newspaper cutting from the Births, Deaths and Marriages secion in the paper dating 1957 rolled up in a piece of mattress ticking tucked into the wall bordering O’Donnell Gardens and Luna Park.
When I unwrapped it, I instantly felt as though I was invading someone’s privacy. That these posessions were very special to someone and that they had been lost. That this may have been all that they owned.
I thought about returning it to the place it was found, but instead it now hangs on my pinboard at work. I feel, rightly or wrongly that the owner was experiencing a sense of loss and that now the physical acknowledgment of that loss has also now been lost to them.”
Stash is part of the Cracks in the Pavement project. The work calls attention to the ‘in-between’ spaces encountered throughout everyday life. The project focuses on details within the urban landscape and encourages close inspection of our social space. Artists have placed art objects into the landscape for people to find and keep.
Carlisle St
Pakington St East St Kilda
When J went back to take another photo somebody had covered her stencil by leaning the mattress against a wall. She left it as it was. It wasn’t her turf.
Blessington St
Blessington and Barkly Streets
A remnant of this piano was last seen in Mitford St. It looked like an abandoned ‘harp type’ instrument lying amongst the cardboard boxes. By the time J returned with her camera, it was gone. What happened to the keyboard, what happened to the frame and what happpened to the players?
Found: everywhere, but not as often.
So what did happen to Stash #1? It didn’t stay long under Simon Perry’s cushion. Did it get handed to the info desk at Linden Gallery or did somebody hand it to the police because there was money inside?
I can just hear the conversation now. “Has anybody lost three, one pound notes, a lock of brown hair, and an ad from the ‘Missing Friend’s’ column, all bundled up in old piece of mattress cloth?
What would the ‘old boys’ who used to live in the boarding house have to say about that (Linden used to be a boarding house until the early 80’s).
Acland St
Blessington St and Belford St
more to come…………………..