What comes to your mind when you think about a key? Sometimes you need to know where they are, and sometimes you know where they are but don't know what they're for. Last week my daughter was looking into her daddy's wallet when she found a lonely key. What is it for, she asked... he said (as a joke) "it's the key to happiness, I always carry it around in case I need to use it someday". The real answer is that he had forgotten what it's for.
What would you do if you really had an actual key, you know the metal kind, copper or zinc or whatever.. and know you could use it in case you needed to find happiness? where could you use it? would you use it to win the lottery? or in your body should you needed to be healthy again? I don't know what I would do with it but I think I would be too scared to use it, you know what your mother always says about being careful of what you wish for because it could come true.
Maybe I wouldn't keep it for myself but then, who to give it to? and why? and what for? is anyone more worthy of it? This is the question I release to the world today. I will leave this card tomorrow in the passports office where I have to go get my new one.. It'll have the post it note that says "read me".
I don't know if I'll be able to take a picture of it, but I'll definitely try!

So here's my new found art tuesdays card for this week. It's made with a loteria card from a Mexican game (it's like bingo). The topic is STAR and I thought about making some kind of positive message for the person who'll find this, and not only a random story to which they wouldn't feel related to and have trouble understanding. The caption reads "You are the star in the movie of your life" I'm sure I've read this before somewhere, or maybe was it in a movie?
I left it in the women's locker room at the gym and I waited to see who found it, I'm always interested in seeing their reaction, and as I stood idly there, I saw a lot of people walking by, even standing in front of it and they either didn't saw it or didn't care to pick it up. I went upstairs to workout and after about an hour came back, and the card was still there! I've been thinking about that and I think this is becoming an interesting sociological experiment! are we so saturated with information and images that we don't stop and see what's around us? or is it that we are afraid of getting into someone else's business by picking up something that doesn't belong to us? what if opportunity is passing us by right now and we haven't stopped to listen??
See other contributions to Found Art Tuesdays here:
- Kathy Larocco

Join me for Found-Art Tuesdays, here

Don't you just love the Starbucks Cards? I find them to be very pretty and clever illustrations, there's always people having coffee or something fun happening. I've been collecting them whenever I see a new one and use it in some way in a painting. I just found out today that there's some very serious collectors out there trading cards between themselves or buying cards from other collectors in other countries or states... I wonder if the guys in starbucks know about this and take advantage of it, you know, releasing different cards in different states and things like that.
Well anyway, this card I made yesterday for found art Tuesdays (its the first one I make!) is about Betty Sue, a girl that goes to starbucks everyday to get her venti chai latte (I wonder what that tastes like) and even though she tells everyone she's there for the coffee, she's secretly also there to see the other regulars, like Gavin (that handsome guy that never knows you exist), she will sit in the table by the door and watch him as he flies in and out with the same grande half-caff latte with skim milk, wondering where he's going to and what he'll do today.
What she doesn't know is that Gavin is there everyday secretly wondering if that pretty red head will be there at the table by the door, reading her paper and drinking her chai.
I'll leave this card today at the starbucks in a table to be found by someone, I wonder who it'll be!

SAFE for Illustration Friday


The Stories they tell us to make us feel safe.





I made this painting a couple of years ago, it's called "Niños Heroes" or Heroic Children, It's about a story that is on the Mexican history text books (which doesn't mean is true) about these children soldiers (13 to 19 years old) that defended the Militar Academy in the Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City in 1873 from some bad guys (the American Army) and the story goes that they chose to die than to stop fighting them. I think the school system and the government tell us these stories to make us feel safe about our government in Mexico and trust that they would defend us with their own lives... maybe they did back in 1873....
I used a very old 5 000 peso bill with the illustration of these brave soldiers and I wrote their names in between.

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