I'm making a piece of work to trade with a friend who gave me a gorgeous ring -- I decided to ask his partner for a quote he loves and I would do something around that. He did give me a great quote, "Just Today", which my friend loves and actually wears on a ring on his hand. I love the sentiment, as well, the idea that we'll all get by if we just take it day by day. Concentrate on just today... So, I made the artwork: I sewed on the machine, I hand-stitched this juicy vintage fabric, I built these little balsa-wood structures to hold the work up and out, I finished it, adhered it, slept on it, walked back into the studio the next day and didn't love it. I could suddenly see so clearly, it wasn't what I was after. I immediately set to dismantling it.
It happens. Not often, but sometimes. I make a piece of work, or part of a piece of work, and it just doesn't come together. Then I'm left with bits and pieces that were worked and re-worked with total intention and love and I just cannot throw those bits and pieces away! So, a couple of years ago, I decided to start leaving these little pieces behind... on my chair in the court house after jury duty, on the library keyboard after some research, in the underground book vault at Pratt university, on the cork board in an elevator, on the counter at the Post Office, in a book store, on a wall at the park, and taped to the child's seat of a cart at my local grocery store. I try to always take a photo of the piece "in the wild"-- and if I shoot it just right, you can see the message I've left for someone to find. I've started to call them #messagesfrommolly on Instagram.
Passing by a lot of intense characters on the streets of downtown Los Angeles: sad, crazy, tweaking, babbling, dancing with their eyes closed, screaming and then the everyday down-on-your-luck people, some days, the whole of it seem just seem intrinsically harder than others. I leave a lot of these messages downtown in places I hope someone who needs it will find it. The most current, left behind from the work I just dismantled: the fabric, the leather letters, tiny shreds of thread and the message, "Just Today" -- taking it minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day...I just know someone that passes it will need it and they can even take it with them. It's why these messages go out there, rather than in the trash.
