Edges, corners & unders
As much as I would like to think that ornaments appear just below where they were fallen off a garment, person, animal or thing, observations over the past weeks indicate this is usually not true. Once a small ornament is dislodged from its original context (sewn to a garment, attached to a chain, etc.) that is not the end of it’s object biography before discovery and collection. We all travel the same routes at least twice a day, sometimes many more (in and out of doorways, up and down stairs, back and forth in hallways, on sidewalks). In doing this we trample, kick or otherwise move all sorts of micro-artifacts.
In NYC these are the detritus of crowded places and multi-tasking: candy wrappers, half eaten candy, cigarette butts, dog poop, hair, dust, bottle tops, screws, grommets, chewed gum, and unidentifiable goop and blobs. All of this stuff ends up in the edges, at gutters next to curbs, right angles created where the sidewalk meets the building, in cracks in sidewalks, stuck in grates, grooves of elevators. It also piles up under fences, stair railings and other permanent raised structures as well as under tables, chairs, subway seats. Kicked shuffled and sometimes thrown in untraveled and un-trampled locales. These are safe landing places for unnoticed micro artifacts such as ornaments - liminal spaces between paths of movement, but identifiers of the movers within.
This phenomenon is particularly noticeable this week, as the filthy snowbanks melt, leaving only the filth behind. As was observed today by the NY Times.
And amongst that really gross crap are lost ornaments. Collection this week is rich, yet not for the faint of heart. More than once I have been fooled by a half sucked hard candy. Yuck.
A blue marble stuck in a grate (I couldn’t get it out) on w58th street between 8th-9th aves.
