Pop Smart - Flower child

On Feb. 9, 6-8 p.m., Atlanta artist Stewart Haddock will debut blog entries from his A Painted Flower a Day Project at Eyedrum. Every day in 2007 Haddock handed out a tiny 2- to 3-inch painted flower to strangers and friends and recorded their response. The project brought art into daily life and allowed Haddock to deal with his shyness.

What are the flowers painted on? How long do they take to paint?

The flowers are painted on loose canvas with acrylic. I would paint them in batches of 30 to 60, sometimes less if I was just working with a spare piece of canvas. I would make an evening out of it. So, 30 to 60 in two to four hours.

What gave you the idea for the project?

The woman I was dating at the end of 2006 was an extreme extrovert. I am not. I can get serious anxiety in social situations. I was thinking of some way to get over this anxiety. I was thinking that I should just introduce myself to random people and tell them why I was doing this, but I knew I would not really do that. At the same time I was thinking of some way to do more with my art than just give it to my friends. The two ideas just fit together, so I decided that I would do it for a year.

How do you decide who to give a flower to?

Sometimes, I would actively look for someone to give the flower to. If I was on my lunch break or if the day was ending, I would give it to the first person that was not obviously busy or talking to someone or shaking their fist at me. Other times, it was a spur of the moment thing. I would be talking with a person and they would seem nice and I would give them a flower.

No one shook their fist at me, of course!