Art Abandonment Hot Buttons

So. Recently I was browsing the abandoned art group on Facebook, because I’ve had fun leaving my Sharing Kitties around Toronto now and then. It’s neat to see what other people leave around, and wish I’d been the one to find it. People really are very generous with their art. Basically, the art abandonment movement involves leaving art or craft pieces in public places, with a clear tag indicating that the finder is to take the piece, and sometimes you leave an email or URL for people to send you a message when they get home or whatever.

Anyhow, artist and writer Michael deMeng made a post about his book shown above (or maybe not, the link is being stupid as of the writing of this post), The Art Abandonment Project: Create and Share Random Acts of Art. He was just sharing that he was excited for his book coming out and whatnot. I thought it was nice, but apparently he committed a grievous crime to others in the group. *insert eyerolling here* People began vigorously flaming him for daring to make any money of a movement that is all about giving things away for free. I get it. I really do. But people write about all sorts of things all the time, and the point of it is to spread the word to those who either don’t know about it, or who want more information and guidance about it. Believe it or not, there are people in the world, even artists, who don’t go online much, or who don’t know how to find out about things like this. Some people just don’t. They may still rely on the books and magazines they see at the library, book store, or arts & crafts store to inform them about what’s new and cool. For real. These people exist.

Secondly, I have no problem with people making money for doing research and writing a book about any given topic. Michael deMeng did the work, and I feel he deserves whatever he gets paid for it. Some people even brought into question whether or not he obtained his samples in the book legitimately and had permission to use them. Really? I’m disgusted.

For those of you who flamed Michael so hard that he deleted his happy post, shame on you! There are ways to express your opinions without crushing the happy moment for an artist and writer when their book comes out. I really hope that no one ever makes you feel so bad about a happy moment that you feel you need to delete the announcement. Jerks.

For the rest of you who are truly interested in the very cool movement of creating little pieces of art specifically to leave for a stranger to find, I hope that you’ll consider picking up Michael’s book. If you do, I’d love it if you use my associate link above so I can share in the joy. LOL Not that I expect much, but every bit helps. At least Google about art abandonment and see what cool things other artists are doing out there.