![\"This](\"http:\/\/urban-plains.com\/2016\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/FAF1-1-1124x1124.jpg\")
This is just one of the nine small photographs that artist Jami Milne left around the city for Des Moines\u2019 inaugural Free Art Friday.<\/p><\/div>\n
The Free Art Friday movement in Des Moines encourages the appreciation\u2014-and creation\u2014-of artwork<\/span><\/h5>\nWords by\u00a0Taylor Eisenhauer<\/em>
\nPhotos courtesy of\u00a0Jami Milne<\/em><\/p>\nOn a warm Friday in June, local artist Jami Milne peppered Des Moines with nine small wooden blocks, each emblazoned with its own photograph. She leaned one with a slightly rumpled\u2014but still hanging\u2014American flag against the leg of a street-side USPS mailbox. She placed another featuring a flamingo in Paris on the step of a pale pink door. She even left one depicting a horse sculpture made of driftwood on the ledge of a handwritten sign that read \u201cNo art festival parking.\u201d These blocks were Milne\u2019s contribution to Des Moines\u2019 inaugural Free Art Friday.<\/span><\/p>\nU.K.-based artist <\/span>My Dog Sighs<\/a> created Free Art Friday in 2006. His concept, dropping your art for someone else to find, has become a<\/span> global movement<\/span><\/a>, spreading to the U.S. in cities like Santa Barbara, Chicago, Atlanta, Detroit and Austin. And now Des Moines is on that list, thanks to Sarah Fisch.<\/span><\/p>\nAfter seeing her brother participate in Atlanta\u2019s Free Art Friday, graphic designer Fisch and her boyfriend, Trenton Chesling, thought such a movement would be a great fit for Des Moines\u2019 art scene. \u201cWe wanted to catch the eye of all the great artists around here and make their art easy for people to see and to access – maybe get a piece of it,\u201d Fisch said. \u201cWe have a lot of great up-and-coming artists, and we hoped they could use this as way to get their names out there even more.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nThe couple scheduled the first Free Art Friday to begin the same weekend as the<\/span> Des Moines Arts Festival<\/span><\/a>, a multi-day celebration of central Iowa arts in June. To help spread the word, Fisch and Chesling created a<\/span> Facebook page<\/span><\/a>, an<\/span> Instagram account<\/span><\/a> and the movement\u2019s hashtag for the Des Moines area:<\/span> #fafdsm<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n\nFREE ART FRIDAY!
You find it, you keep it. @WHOWeather<\/a> #fafdsm<\/a> #seizedesmoines<\/a> #spreadtheart<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/8o4oefjI4L<\/a><\/p>\n— Lousy Photographer (@FourEyesFoto) August 19, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nPhotos courtesy of\u00a0Jami Milne<\/em><\/p>\n
On a warm Friday in June, local artist Jami Milne peppered Des Moines with nine small wooden blocks, each emblazoned with its own photograph. She leaned one with a slightly rumpled\u2014but still hanging\u2014American flag against the leg of a street-side USPS mailbox. She placed another featuring a flamingo in Paris on the step of a pale pink door. She even left one depicting a horse sculpture made of driftwood on the ledge of a handwritten sign that read \u201cNo art festival parking.\u201d These blocks were Milne\u2019s contribution to Des Moines\u2019 inaugural Free Art Friday.<\/span><\/p>\n U.K.-based artist <\/span>My Dog Sighs<\/a> created Free Art Friday in 2006. His concept, dropping your art for someone else to find, has become a<\/span> global movement<\/span><\/a>, spreading to the U.S. in cities like Santa Barbara, Chicago, Atlanta, Detroit and Austin. And now Des Moines is on that list, thanks to Sarah Fisch.<\/span><\/p>\n After seeing her brother participate in Atlanta\u2019s Free Art Friday, graphic designer Fisch and her boyfriend, Trenton Chesling, thought such a movement would be a great fit for Des Moines\u2019 art scene. \u201cWe wanted to catch the eye of all the great artists around here and make their art easy for people to see and to access – maybe get a piece of it,\u201d Fisch said. \u201cWe have a lot of great up-and-coming artists, and we hoped they could use this as way to get their names out there even more.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The couple scheduled the first Free Art Friday to begin the same weekend as the<\/span> Des Moines Arts Festival<\/span><\/a>, a multi-day celebration of central Iowa arts in June. To help spread the word, Fisch and Chesling created a<\/span> Facebook page<\/span><\/a>, an<\/span> Instagram account<\/span><\/a> and the movement\u2019s hashtag for the Des Moines area:<\/span> #fafdsm<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n FREE ART FRIDAY! — Lousy Photographer (@FourEyesFoto) August 19, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n
You find it, you keep it. @WHOWeather<\/a> #fafdsm<\/a> #seizedesmoines<\/a> #spreadtheart<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/8o4oefjI4L<\/a><\/p>\n