Painted Rock Project

I find myself realizing that I am living creatively more than ever. I can't control it. After losing my dad in 2015, I found an idea on line to take a picture a day to notice joy. I realized pretty quickly that although I was deeply grieving my Dad, there was not a shortage of joy in my life. Doing this project gave me something to look forward to each day. I assembled the photos into a slide show and added music. For the most part I stuck to one a day but if I missed a day I just picked up the next day. I made this photo project my focus for a year.

A separate incident influenced me to begin painting a rock a day. A friend of mine found two painted rocks while walking her dog in the neighborhood. She seemed genuinely happy to find these treasures and keeps them by the entrance to her house. We also took a walk in a park and found a painted rock. It was in a garden and seemed like a prayer for healing, we left this rock.

For me, painting the rocks combined these two experiences. I decided to paint a rock a day as a way to heal from my sadness of missing my dad. I decided to start placing them where people could find them. I struggled with letting go of them at first, so I took a 10 second video each time I put one down. I am combining the video clips into a slideshow.

My husband thought of the idea to put my website on the rock so that a person could look up the website and see where it came from and make it more interactive. A person could comment about how they found the rock or leave a photo. I haven't started this yet, but it might be fun! I want to encourage interaction and collaboration as much as possible.

A cool thing happened when I left a rock near the baseball field where my son was playing. After the game we headed home. It was dark and it looked like the rock had been picked up. It was a rock that I had collaged and painted using a magazine picture of kids in a boat on the ocean. At the next game I saw a young boy holding the rock. He came and showed it to his parents who were sitting near me in the bleachers. Later my son told me that the boy was the brother of a teammate and that he had showed it to my son, excitedly saying, "Look what I found!"

For a couple friends who have seen my pile of painted rocks at my work table, and wanted one, I have placed them in their yards. I look forward to a text or call when they have found it! My mom loves Hawaii, so I had fun painting Hawaiian themed rocks for her! I love it that something I am doing to process grief is bringing joy to others! And the letting go of each rock is good for me!