Thursday Salute to Originals: Urban Geodes
We love when art is “hidden” in the most obvious of places! Like big-time Los Angeles, for example. Today we’re introducing you to an artist who creates something new and bold out of the old and decrepit; by placing colorful art designs in cracks and crevices of crumbling buildings, artist Paige Smith is really brightening up the dark and dusty corners of LA.
Better known as “A Common Name,” Smith has been creating colorful, hand-painted geodes out of paper. She places her Urban Geodes of purple, pink, and gold along the cracks of buildings’ walls and holes, where they appear to be jutting out as new growth on the wall.
Why? Well, rather than fixing up the walls with the regular old bricks, cement, or spackle, Smith believes she can jazz them up with vibrant geodes instead. Of her work, Smith says, “Geodes are formations made and found in nature and my process of using man-made materials and placing them in major cities concurrently signals the tension between nature and industry and celebrates the beauty of urban space.”
Today we salute Paige Smith for catching our eye from among the most common spaces. Her geodes and their placements demand that we be present, allowing us to stop and discover the beauty in the mundane.
Sources: Paige Smith, Laughing Squid, This is Colossal