Holiday Treasure Hunt
Those who have spent some time perusing the rest of the site or have read my post “The Search for Etheric Generator, Part I,” know that I love a good treasure hunt. In fact, when I was a kid, my brother and sister and I staged mock Easter egg hunts weeks before the actual event. I love it when life is full of fun pleasant surprises, but all too often the surprises in our lives are unpleasant ones. And the whole Unabomber/terrorist horribleness has cast an awful shadow on our expectations related to stumbling upon someting curious. Part of the art cache treasure hunt aspect of The Last Good Fairy project was to counteract, in my own small way, this disheartening development in human history.
With the economic downturn affecting so many people, and the past year containing so many unpleasant surprises in Richard’s and my life—as well as the lives of many of our loved ones—I wanted to do something to balance things out, however I could. I thought it would be fun to borrow the Easter egg hunt idea and apply it to the winter holiday season.
To that end, I have made seven found object ornaments suitable for hanging. Here they are, pictured above. One ornament is two-sided; the rest are one-sided. They are hanging along the public Lema Ranch (Secluded and Leah’s) paths at The McConnell Foundation headquarters. To look for them, start at the parking lot at Shasta View and Hemingway (directions can be found on the McConnell website; click on “Download PDF Map”), across from Mountain View Middle School.
You don’t have to go searching for them if you’re in their vicinity. You can spot them if you’re looking carefully. All of the ornaments are within easy walking distance of the parking lot (a couple are visible from the parking lot itself), and do not require going off the trails to find or see. Keep in mind that the wind will twist the ornaments and they may be at right angles to your line of sight; in addition, some are easier to spot than others. Please stay on the trail; it’s very generous of McConnell to host this installation and I would hate for it to cause any grief for them.
If you fall in love with one of them, you can take it home with you; or you can leave them in place for others to view. I’m sure I don’t need to say this, but just in case: If you do take an ornament, please take only one and leave the others for someone else. Be mindful that, if you take down an ornament, you don’t poke yourself with the metal wire; some small wire snips might not be a bad idea to bring along. Retrieve the art at your own risk, of course, and be sure not to leave any of the wire behind if you do use snips. The copper wire is easier to unwind than the aluminum wire.
If anyone who reads this blog post finds any of them and would like to let me know and give me any thoughts or comments you might have, please e-mail me at keswickhouse@earthlink.net. (Some of my friends have asked about the fact that you can’t leave comments on this blog. The reason is that my software is local—iWeb—not server-based, and when my adorable niece helped me to set this up, I wasn’t planning on having a blog. So I will need to change my set-up to be able to accept comments. But in the meantime, it’s easy to send me an e-mail and it’s easy for me to post your comments.)
I’ll post any results that I hear about. It is possible that the ornaments will be discovered simply by someone observant who doesn’t know about this project and so I won’t know about it. But if I do hear from anyone, I’ll let you know.
And if this turns out to be as much fun as I hope it will, this might not be the last of my guerilla art cache treasure hunts.
To any interested treasure hunters: Whether you find an ornament or not, I hope you have fun looking!
Many thanks to Shannon Phillips and the McConnell Foundation for their support in hosting this treasure hunt and their continued support of public art!
Update: Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Two ornaments (the one at the bottom, far right, and either the third ornament to the right on the top row, or the one right below it on the bottom row) have found a loving home, as you can read below :)
My son and daughter loved looking for the ornaments (we took one and left two that we had brought with us) and took pictures of the ones we left - we took the round one with the large round rock? in the middle and the smaller stones around the outside. Another family took one that had the two red stones that resembled a "Piccassoish cat face" my son called it. Anyway, thank you for doing such a great thing - weather couldn’t have been more perfect as the views. Have you ever thought about setting up a geo-cache? The ornaments were so beautiful and a wonderful idea!
Update: Saturday, December 13, 2008
Two more ornaments have found a happy home; here’s the story below:
Thank you for the adventurous hunt. My mom and I heard about the hidden ornaments from a friend on Tuesday the 9th. We didn't know where to begin or what they would look like. My mom spotted the ornament with the holes and broken tea cup. It was such a surprize! Later in the walk, I found the ornament with a green rock and teal bead for my tree. We also had my 6 month old son named Gabe with us. The ornament is now treasure on my tree, and I look forward to sharing the memory with others in years to come. Thank you for the special memory.
Final Update: Tuesday, December 16, 2008
I went out to Lema Ranch today to check on the status of the remaining three ornaments, plus the two that the treasure hunters left in place of the ones they took home, and it appears that they have all been claimed. Since I haven’t heard from anyone about these last ornaments, I’m assuming they were found by people who stumbled upon them, unaware of the larger project; if so, I’m hoping that finding the ornaments unexpectedly delighted them as much as the treasure hunters who set out to find them. And I’m also assuming that the ornaments that the first family left were put in the same place as the ones they found; otherwise, I suppose they could still be out there.
There was a Batman action figure sitting on the picnic table near the restrooms, however, if anyone is missing one or looking for one.
Thank you to everyone who made this project so much fun. I can’t tell you how much it tickled me to hear from the treasure hunters above, with their heartwarming stories and wonderful turns of phrase (I’m particularly fond of the description of the one ornament as a “Piccassoish cat face” and of another as “treasure on my tree.”) And I love knowing that all the ornaments have found their way into the possession of those who treasure them and that those who went looking for them had such a good time doing so. Happy Holidays to you all and thank you for the gifts of appreciation that you gave me!
Wait! Another Update: Saturday, December 20, 2008
Here’s an e-mail I received from the first family to retrieve ornaments:
Hi, we were the first family who took one of the art ornaments and we had left two others. My kids really got into it and made more art ornaments. We just put them out there today... Friday and I've included pictures of the three that we left. I don't know if anyone else got into it as much but here we are... there's three total, glass wood and whatever else my kids could find. They did a great job I thought. At any rate thank you for the experience and I know at least one of my kids will remember the experience. We all had a lot of fun!
Monday, December 8, 2008