Since I last wrote in my Snagging the Muse blog, I’ve made and sold some fun found object art. Most of it was made in Maine on an island where we have a small house. Actually, it’s a garage with the giant double door facing the ocean. It’s an inspirational location, where sailboats, ferries and a variety of birds pass by.

The barnacles were hard to find. Some were on the beach, but other’s I picked off the pilings. Of course, I only chose old dead ones. In any case, this is the style I was working on in Maine.

Barnacle, driftwood, lobster line, and watercolors.

On our tiny beach, new bits of flotsam and jetsam show up every day.

No matter the weather, my daily routine was to go down to the beach with my oversized, wicker basket, to collect things like antique bottles, lobster line, barnacles, driftwood, and bits of ceramic and beach glass. The occasional buoy or boat bumper will always show up. I’ve taken many a lost buoy to the storefront in town, where their owners can pick them up. All the beach finds made for some great found object art. At the local flea market every weekend I advertised my art as everything in the art piece was found on the island.

Found Object Art With Nothing To Find

Coming back to Virginia for the winter means a dearth of things to find on the ground, except maybe plastic bottles. There is no beach for things to wash up on. Even a walk in the woods there’s a limit of what can be found and used.

The bark and lichen are randomly placed and I could have done a better job with that but it was to get an idea of what it would look like.

The bark looks ridiculous but painting is fun. I’d like to add to it, but with what? I have a stack of paintings ready to get dressed up like the sailboat picture above, but now I have to wait until we get back to the island. It’s a fun challenge. Yes, the painting should be able to stand on it’s own and I think it can, but I’ve had so much fun searching and adding to the other paintings.

I posted a few of the ones that are left from last summer on my Penzart site:  https://penzart.square.site/