Accidental Art: The Beauty Beside the Trash Can

For my creativity assignment, I looked for accidental art on BYU campus.  As I was walking around, looking for accidental art, I started to notice things like the interesting pattern of dirt scattered on the sidewalk and the beauty and symbolism of weeds growing up through the cracks in the sidewalk.  Something especially interesting that I saw was the pattern of these U-shaped stains in the sidewalk near a trash can by the SWKT.  These rust-colored, randomly positioned shapes formed a fascinating pattern in the concrete.  Together with the overlapping twigs and leaves, I believe this forms something very beautiful.
I walk past this garbage can almost every day, and I've never noticed these stains before.  In all of the time I've spent walking around campus, I've never paused to try to see the meaning in things like dirt, weeds, and leaves.  This assignment made me realize that beauty can be found in even the most seemingly insignificant things, if I only take the time and creativity to look for it.

Accidental Art with Shadows

When I finally found the time to start the creativity assignment the sun had already set and I started to worry that I would have to go find "art" in between classes the next day. But then I realized that nighttime offers a whole other spectrum of art and I decided that a walk at night could be the answer to creativity. On my stroll I realized the beauty of shadows and how they reflect reality in a disfigured manner. I was able to capture shots of a street sign that looks like a shadowy pinwheel, a 50 foot black tree that juts out of a stump, a detailed reflection of a bike tire, and a dark hand rail that dissolves into the abyss. I was shocked by how much the contrast of light and dark could create at night.

A Desk's Life: 30 Minutes in 6 Seconds

I hit a wall while studying in the library and decided to take a break. Remembering I had a creativity assignment to complete, I figured it was as good a time as any to do it. I gave myself 30 minutes and started brainstorming ways to document the passage of time. This was my favorite one.

I looked over and saw a sad soul staring out the window. I'd observed him restlessly squirming around for about an hour, unable to really focus on  what appeared to be a reading assignment. Using him as my inspiration, I thought it would be amusing to look up at him every 30 seconds for a half hour and draw exactly what I saw every time. Here's what I got.

About 15 minutes into it, he appeared to get a text and then got up and left. With half my time remaining, and my subject gone, I decided to change my focus from the person to the desk. After a few minutes of drawing the empty desk and an empty chair, a girl walked up and sat at the desk.

She wasn't a dynamic of a muse as the desk's former occupant, but trying to guess whether this obsessive texter would have her phone in her hand or on the desk every 30 seconds became an all too amusing game for me. 

In the end, I created a digital flip-book of my 30 minute break, complete with a fragmented audio documentation of the conversations around me while completing it, as seen and heard in the vine below.

Accidental Art: New Perspective, New Stories

    We all know nature is beautiful and man has made some beautiful things. I feel like we pass amazing things everyday and sometimes see them and sometimes we don't. As I know today I was intentionally searching for this accidental art I wanted things that made me think about the how and why.



This is simply the walkway outside the library and the Wilk. This is the first thing that really was accidental but identified as an object for me. I see the five worn (or unworn depending on outlook) spots from old planters and clearly see the five dot side of a die. It was tough from the angle to capture it let alone focus on it and give it it's own frame. Regardless I think it is a cool sight and has a clear form and a story behind how it happened.




One mans trash is another mans art. I like this because it is so unintentional but says so much. This in many ways demonstrates a day in the life of a BYU student. There is so much to infer about each object how and why it is there. It is also only part of the photo. It contrasts with a unique angle away from our daily perspective. It is something that looks good though you never think of beauty or art on a trash can. Sometimes we just look from a different perspective and find something more.

Mitchell Marshall

Thought Experiment

What if there’s a specific way to turn a door handle that ends up taking us to a secret portal? What if we all just don’t know the specific pattern?

If there was a specific pattern to twisting a door handle, one day a person is most likely to be fooling around with turning a door handle and ends up NOT where he expected to be.  Suddenly this man spends years of his life trying to recreate exactly what he did to end up in this different realm. In his last crazed attempt he finally recreates it and escapes back into our world. He then has got the pattern down and can go into all different realms. Behind each door he does the pattern on there is a completely different realm. But wait. This man later gets married and his wife catches on to “this pattern.” But then they get a divorce and the wife shares this pattern with a gazillion other people so soon enough EVERYONE is just doing the pattern on any door handle and going back and forth between this world and other realms.  Absolute mayhem.

Next time think about how you twist a door handle...

Accidental Art: Confused Cords

     As I walked from the campus of Brigham Young University to my apartment I prowled for any existing or natural "art" that I might find. Maybe because of the time of day, or due to my lack of sleep the night before, or the fact that I have strolled the same path too many times before, nothing caught my eye. Discouraged, I lugged myself up the stairs to my apartment, through the door, and into my room. I sat down at my desk with the intent of reviewing learning suite for what other possible options I could fulfill in order to complete this assignment. After I had set up my laptop and connected all of the stationary accessories that enhance the computer's functionality, I turned on all of the devices and waited for learning suite to load. When I glanced down at my keyboard to type, the light from my desk lamp reflected the scene pictured above into my peripheral vision.
The chaos was what first intrigued my eyes; then it dawned on me that in the seemingly nonsensical jumble of wires, each cord had only two ends that were all connected to either a device or an input. The circular tendencies of the cords create an impression of infinite confusion, even though the cords themselves are not unreasonably long. I had never really paid attention to anything other than the inputs, plug-ins and devices themselves, but on this night the beauty was created by the in-between.

A Reflection I can't share

I've always been fascinated with light. There is so much to learn about life through observation of light. What General Conference has not included at least one talk drawing some analogy concerning light and some aspect of the gospel? I took a little trip into my own conscience to understand a little more about light as I stumbled upon some accidental light.

As I came out of the HFAC I came upon a reflection in a puddle of water that showed a tree in the distance. As I snapped a photo on my phone I noticed that the reflection was not showing up. I noticed that this image was only possible in that moment. That the light (the Spirit) and the puddle of water (Baptism) provided a once in a lifetime image that cannot be recreated.

          So are many things in life. I cannot recapture many moments. Sometimes it is even impossible to record it (as evident by my camera failing to capture all of this). I could only truly experience the moment by actively living in the moment. 

-C. Pace