Objects: Lost & Found by Penny Irwin

8.5" x 11"
Classified ads from a newspaper glued to cheesecloth and appliquéd to a sew & flip base.
I was going for the look of a neighborhood message board that used to be outside a small local grocery before WalMart came along.

Originally I thought to list on this message board things I see when I walk; "Lost" many trash objects. And "Found", signs of Spring and returning life. This proved overwhelming.
Objects lost and found are a mixed message from the Earth. It still has business with us but we are hanging by a thread.

Lost:
one green bead
9 CO2 cartridges
thousands of beer bottle glass shards
uncounted aluminum beer cans and glass bottles
plastic soda straws
plastic cup covers
plastic chewing gum container
3 single gloves, no matches
nails
plastic coated wires
1 single shoe
sunglasses with one lense
Arrowhead mountain Spring water bottles
cigarette butts and empty cigarette packs
2 children's lunch boxes
several short lengths of plastic pipe
a dust pan, ironic?
3 Christmas trees
several tires
road kill fawn, tossed into wild roses.
Black plastic garbage bags filled with leaves and grass clippings (yes, I forced myself to look)
chunks of broken cement, brick and sod
piles of black asphalt and red cinders
Paperback: "Riddley Walker" (good book)
pair of children's mittens, placed together on a large rock

Found: Many familiar birds, insects and animal tracks. (It was all I could do to remember the trash) Found: the willows have returned to life. They have survived many fires and drought years. They once stood as single trees and now are a dense mass of sucker growth; taller and more massive each year. They might one day be single trees again.