Liliane Blom Art Studio

The beauty with JOY  is that it can be found in the small and trivial as well as the monumental and awe-inspiring.  CANNED JOY is about the former.  About my unexpected encounter with playful dancing cans. I was standing on a rooftop in Anacostia looking across the river, when some soda and beer cans rattled by my feet. My first thought was not kind. Trash I thought.  People are pigs. But the cans were zooming around with such gusto, coming and going, running and jumping, separating and reuniting, I felt like I was watching children at recess.  I was transfixed, and maybe you will to.  I invite you to sit down and watch or to partake in the game. 

Trash, pollution, all bad things of course, but sometimes even trash can be beautiful. We have all seen the dancing plastic bag flitting about like a butterfly, the bottle bobbing up and down like some mysterious submarine on the water's edge. Not that I am advocating pollution, but sometimes even mundane, ordinary objects can be beautiful and seem to acquire a soul through motion. In this case soda-cans pushed by the wind take on the characteristics of children at play.

Small things, great joys. Will you roll with me as I include you in my circle of happiness?  Look around and you will see things that have brought me unexpected joy.  The long, long shadow stretching down the hill on my morning walk, that perfect magnolia that will last but a few hours, that yummy cookie that is just waiting to rattle my world, that perfect moon rise, that funny duck face, that awesome reflection in the surface of the pool, that red leaf that fell on my turquoise paisley boot. I share with you the gift of blue sky, of a  kiss, a smile and unexpected invitation to a scrabble game.

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