vol 1 / nr 5 / Budapest, Hungary

Orsolya from Hungary told me how she was sitting and feeling very lonely in Siena's Duomo, when she found the print on the bench. As I felt like a deserted tree myself, it touched me deeply, she wrote.

MAP with the stories

I finally set it up: The Random Prints Map with the stories.

The map also holds the smaller stories or just places the prints ended up (there were a couple of messages with only the final destination, nothing else), but also the long stories with more to say.

As I read these stories again I noticed a peculiar thing: many of the finders are artists themselves or studying art or something related closely to it.

Another strange peculiarity is that there are also two stories where a father of the family has found a print on church and brought it home to his daughter/daughters, one takes a short trip inside Florence and the another one takes a longer trip to Clodig, next to Slovenian border.

randomprints.blogspot.com/p/random-prints-map.html

vol 1 / nr 76 / Portstewart, Northern Ireland

Robert wrote to me about the trip he took with his friend: they had already travelled from Belfast to Amsterdam, then to Berlin, Hannover, Munich, Innsbruck, Worgel, Venice and they had been in Florence for a day when they found the print at the Duomo.

He wrote that he really likes the print, ...as does my girlfriend, i told a bunch of people about it when i returned home. I'm keeping it for myself for now, and am planning on framing and mounting it in such a way that the frame displays not only the print, but the now crinkled envelope and letter also, in a sort of collage.

I think its interesting, this project, as it kinda makes the painting itself more personal, as one has a personal story about how the painting came into my possession which i'll have for the rest of my life!

Stories of the prints

I'll publish some stories that I've received. I first planned to publish them right after receiving the messages, but because the net connections were not so good, the project has been on standby. So, I'm about to do some forgering and change storydates to match the exact date and time when I received the email originally.

The stories will also be available on the map I will set up on the next week.

I only publish the letters and parts of the messages that the writers have given me permission to publish.

The stories are tagged found prints and they are all found listed in http://randomprints.blogspot.com/search/label/found%20prints

vol 1 / nr 52 / Roden, The Netherlands > Llantwit Major, Wales, UK

On September 24, 2010 I received a message from Liesbeth, who told that she likes the project very much and that she's planning to send this print to her daughter in Wales. Her 17 (but almost 18!) year old daughter Anna emailed me on October 17, 2010 that she had received the print but I am NOT the one who found the print, unfortunately.

Anna goes to an international United World College (UWC) of the Atlantic in south Wales. She tells that Random Prints project got her inspired of doing something like that herself: However, I am not an artist and so I can't leave art pieces anywhere. So I am still thinking of something else in that direction! The idea about putting something from yourself into the world and see where it ends up is great.

vol 1 / nr 72 / Korntal-Münchingen, Germany

Sandra and her companion found the envelope in Torre Guinigi in Lucca. First they were a bit sceptical about the project, but then finden wir diese Idee klasse und zudem hat uns das Bild sehr gut gefallen. In their home the picture will always remind them about their fine holiday in Lucca.

vol 1 / nr 39 / St Andrews, Scotland

Emma is from London, but right now she is a first year student of philosophy, psychology and art history at St Andrews University in Scotland. She found the envelope in Florence by Santa Maria del Fiore while traveling around Italy for 6 weeks as part of an art history course. She thinks that this is a wonderful idea, and that this is how art should be shared!

Emma plans to frame the image for her room at university or to take it back home to London.

vol 1 / nr 69 / Paris, France

Lydie found the image near Uffizi gallery in Florence during her vacation: Ce fut une très agréable surprise d'être une destinataire inconnue de votre projet.

vol 1 / nr 75 / Leiden, The Netherlands

Jelmer attended a Language School for one month, when one day he found the letter on the same street (Via Martelli, Florence) where the school is situated. He tells Ten minutes after I opened the enveloppe the rain was falling down.. Now the print is on his bookshelf in his home in Leiden.

vol 1 / nr 70 / Munich, Germany

Anne told me how she ended up finding the print: I found your print in the Basilica of the Santissima Annunziata while holding my little baby very close. It evoked a strange feeling being adressed like that, I quickly checked around, "was this a mistake?" Somehow I had been in a floating mood all this day (despite the fact that we had crashed my mother`s car the day before or because of this) and then in this beautiful church, this mysterious letter, this promising and trusting "to you,whoever you are" - it seemed like the start of a fairytale.

Our daughter has a little corner where she lies and kicks her little chubby legs around the air and we have put your tree there for her to see. It`ll be a little story to tell her when she is older, to enweb her in a little bit of magic.

vol 1 / nr 66 / Beveren-Leie, Belgium

Karel wrote a funny story about how they had perceived the letter first. He was taking a position for a photoshoot at Battistero di San Giovanni (behind the Duomo) in Siena, when Hilde looked for a close-up of me on these steps and she saw next to me your strange envelope. She found it a great idea to take a picture of me, with the envelope... I had seen the envelope as well, but first I couldn't read the words Random art quite well and I made an interpretation like : Randsham ashi... -- "This must be something from an Indian religious group...

But after the picture was taken, Karel opened the envelope and was quite surprised of its content. He has the print on his desk now, and I do enjoy it when I'm writing and the tree doesn't feel so deserted any more, I hope.

Envelope seen on the stairs - still unopened

"During the time I was opening your envelop, Hilde took a picture of the statue of San Giovanni"

After the envelope was opened...

vol 1 / nr 26 / Briarcliff Manor, New York, USA

Artist and professional photographer Don Penny sent me a long email with lots of warm words about the project. He wrote about how he found the print: "Walking the alleys of Florence I looked down to see this crisp, white envelope, in stark contrast o its dusty surroundings, leaning up against a centuries old foundation. Instinctively I reached down to see what it was and upon opening it was engaged and excited to find a beautiful print, intimate and soothing in subject, size and color."

"To create a thing of beauty and then, to offer it, without condition or expectation to any random stranger willing to stop and interact with the non discript envelope is an act of inspired generosity."

"I am a firm believer that it is not what we can get, what we can take in life, but rather what we leave behind."

All the prints are now travelling...

...and some of them have already found a new home. This was a very strange day: it was the first one when I didn't have any letters left to leave anywhere and it felt a bit odd.

To this day I have received 15 replies, that is, at least 1/6 of all the prints have found a good home already :) I'm not expecting all founders to leave message for me, but I'm happy that there are already so many who have done so!

I'm getting soon back home (to Jyväskylä, Finland) and I'll make a map and collect some stories together as soon as I've settled in and got my bags unpacked.

vol 1 / nr 62 / Clodig, Italy

18 year old Stefania wrote me a long email where she tells how his father had found the letter in front of the Santa Maria Novella church in Florence and he brought it home to a small village of 60 people, called Clodig. The village is situated in the north eastern Italy, in Friuli Venezia Giulia, 2kms from the Slovenian border - and Stefania tells that they speak both italian and slovenian languages.

In her email she writes about things that my picture has brought to her mind - it really has brought up a lot of thoughts. She tells that it remainded her of "those photos in which there are 2 photos one on the other, so that at the same time you see two different things."

Her email ends with the words: "maybe a lot of people in this world are alone as the trees."

vol 1 / nr 81 / Florence, Italy

Ale Di Gangi found the envelope in Via dei Pucci 49r and he was "*so* happy to be the lucky person who spotted it." He mounted the picture and it is now hanging on his wall.

Ale Di Gangi is a artist himself. View his website at aledigangi.com and his photos at Flickr www.flickr.com/photos/ale2000/

ps. the possible exhibition - mostra di foto Polaroid di ale di gangi / 20 + 1 scatti scelti - 2007/2010
Exhibit 5 - Firenze 16.10.-5.11.2010
presso, Libreria Seeber - Melbookstore, Via De' Cerretani, 16, Firenze




Edit: November 7, 2010 - I received image of the print hanging on Ale Di Gangi's home -

About 30 prints left

...That is: 2/3 of all the prints are now somewhere travelling.

Since I'm using quite slow mobile web, making the map of the whereabouts of prints has been more difficult than I thought. The map and comments have to wait until I'll get back to better connection - still about one week.

I haven't set any date for leaving a message and it is totally optional anyway, but I'm of course glad of every response I get! I have to say: I'm already very satisfied on how many responses I've already got; many of them with a little story.

Tomorrow I'll be leaving these prints somewhere in Sienna.

vol 1 / nr 44 / Lucca, Italy

Melanie lives in Holland but she didn't keep the print for herself but gave it to a very dear person who lives in Lucca, Italy.

vol 1 / nr 45 / London, England

David found the print in Florence, where he spent a "blissful 4 days with a girl that I love dearly. Love your project, it made me smile and your print will always remind me of a magical time."

vol 1 / nr 87 / Florence, Italy

Jessica is an American artist living and working in Italy. After finding the print she wrote: "I am a week over my due date in my pregnancy and I went out for a walk in hopes to get things going. As I shuffled along the streets of Florence, I saw your envelope in a doorway."

Jessica has lived in several countries and even though the print is now located in Florence, it will most likely continue to move around with Jessica's family.

vol 1 / nr 31 / Treviso, Italy

Giancarlo from Treviso found the print in Florence and tells that "it made my trip to Florence really special." The print hanging on his wall will be a reminder of his trip.

vol 1 / nr 84 / Florence, Italy

The father of two sisters found the letter in a church (Basilica della Santissima Annunziata) and brought it home with him. The sisters then wrote to me to thank me for the print and to ask me how the idea was born - "We like your project very much"

About 20 prints travelling...

I've now left about 20 prints, some of to Helsinki, Finland and the rest of them in Florence, Italy. My first idea was to leave a lot of these prints to Frankfurt and Munich airports where I know people are travelling, but at these times you shouldn't leave anything in airports without permission, which is quite hard to get. So, a small change of plan: I'll propably leave the rest of the prints here in Florence in few weeks time - there's a good change of them ending somewhere else, as the city is full of tourists. As I already have mentioned, this will be the first of this kind of projects - I'll be better prepared and permissions ready to next one :)

Already one print is found here in Florence, by Catherine, a few days ago. I have left the prints in visible places and even though I haven't actually seen someone taking the envelopes, they have soon vanished. Hopefully also those other finders will go and fill the small questionnaire.

And as an answer to one question: I'm not releasing these envelopes in any order, nearly everything is random in this project! :)

I'll start posting the short notices and comments soon with the locations of the pictures.

vol 1 / nr 7 / Copenhagen, Denmark

Elise found the print in bookshop in Helsinki-Vantaa airport and thought first that someone had forgotten it there. She read the story after arriving to Copengahen. She is considering to give it to her ex-boss on his 50th birthday, because (quote) "I think it would be a perfect gift for a man, who travels a lot."

In envelopes.

Finally, all signed and numbered, and put into envelopes with accompanying letter. Ready to be left around.

I'll leave first letters to be found tomorrow, on Tuesday August 24th, 2010.

I'm anxious to find out, when the first contacts will be made - or if there will be any. I have a strong feeling that I'll receive only a few answers and maybe most of the letters will be trashed or just left unnoticed - but who knows. I'm looking forward to find out.

The title of the print: A Tree Deserted

...The signing and numbering process of the the prints is proven to be harder than I thought. Actually, I've already signed them all, but I usually always also write the name of the image to the print - and this time the naming hasn't been so easy. I had one name in mind, when I first started to make this image, but in making process, it adapted a work title of A Tree In a Room. Which it still portrays (in my mind at least), but I've already named one of the following versions with that name and I've always thought that is quite boring to name things with running numbers, such as A Tree In a Room II.

Besides of that, I had thought about name that wouldn't be pointing to so very concrete idea but somehow would bring the "emotional" content forward, closer to the viewer; maybe to evoke some new thoughts. I wanted to name it with something that reflects the idea of the image, but not revealing all, leaving some space for the viewer's imagination too. I had several titles written down, but as it always seems to be happen: I soon found out the very first name I had in mind, before I even started to make the whole picture, was the right one.

So the title of the artwork is: A Tree Deserted

Where did the idea for this image come from?

I'm still in process of signing and numbering. After signing process is over, I'll publish the first photos of the Random print project and the name of the first random print artwork.

What comes to the background of the selected image of the print: I had several images finished or almost finished in my archives and also I had several ideas for totally new image in my head - so making the selection wasn't easy at all. I thought about this for a good time - about two months.

I didn't want to choose some spoilt, lame or unsuccessful images or drafts for project basis (...for some reason I have them a lot), but I wanted to choose an image that would show an idea, which would be characteristic to me. At the same time, I didn't want to choose a picture that was already totally finished, because I wanted to finish the image with this Random print project in mind.

Finally I found the idea for the image from the small sketch / draft which I made a couple of years ago. I had almost forgotten the sketch, even though the same one has already given an idea to three very different images: Apples (2007) from Once Upon A Time... series and A Tree In A Room (2009) and Archipelago from Elsewhere series (view www.coloria.net/dig.art/prints for closer look). The first two hold the idea of a tree in a room and the last one contains the idea of a bit unreal trees with a similar kind of composition.

However, even though the sketch itself has been an inspiration for my work and even if it has influenced to these three other images, I've never realised itself as it is. For me, figuring this out was just a bigger sign of that this would be the image to use. I then did realise the image very true to the original draft, preserving it's sketch-like properties.

From an artistic point of view I'm still not sure if it is the best image to this kind of small print, but for this project it is just what I wanted. Small image with a very simple idea but a very big meaning for myself and for my artwork.

The prints are now ready for signing and numbering

Today I've printed the rest of the prints. Now there are 90 small prints waiting for signing and numbering.

The printing process itself was quite pleasant job - after those several hours spent with solving printer and ink problems had passed by. I found out that one of the pigment inks in stock has been expired and another one will soon expire... Luckily I had the replacement ink for the already-expired one, but there is no replacement ink waiting for another one. And if one of the eight inks runs out, the printing process stops. The strange error messages, odd behaviour from my printer and the knowledge of the expiring ink made me very nervous: there are only a couple of days left to print, sign and number these artworks and to close them to envelopes if I want to stick to my plan.

But finally all worked out well. Harder projects are always the more precious ones!

The letter and translations

I've written a short letter in English to people who'll find the prints. English is a well known language, but I also wanted the letter in French and German, so I asked help from my frieds. Thanks for Pirkko for the French translation and thanks for Christine for German translation.

I will include all the three language versions on one paper so that there will be one letter and one print in each envelope.

First random print project

My very first random print project will start in August 2010. The prints will be left in random places in Europe to be found and to be taken home from August 24, 2010 forward. I hope to hear where the prints will end up. The (anonymous) stories will be shown here from the end of September on. I will also make a map to show the locations all around the world - where the prints end up to.

This project is also about "random people" who just happen to find these randomly distributed letters.

I've had this idea for several years now and I can't actually recall where it did came from. But one of the projects which initiated this idea again was the BookCrossing -project to which I started contribute this year. I planned to put something small (letter, drawn image etc.) between the pages of the books that I would leave around for someone to pick and then I remembered my original idea of making randomly found prints.

Why haven't I realized this project before? I don't know. It just seems that now is the right time to start.