The art of flower power, the power of flower art

Haddock, Painted Flower
Originally uploaded by saysport.

There are marathoners, and then there are marathoners of feel-good. An example of the latter can be found over at A Painted Flower a Day.

Site creator Stewart Haddock, when he's not serving as a correspondent for Say, Sport or living his life, is busy painting very small flowers on very small canvases (maybe two inches in height?), and he's handing out one each day, for the entire year 2007, to -- well, to just about anyone: often people he doesn't know and has never met before. Each flower painting he gives away is original; he's creating a year's worth. He's also documenting who receives his rose-and-forest brushstrokes, as well as the person's reaction, on that blog we just referred you to.

Why? Because.

"A social experiment," he calls it.

We call it positive, pocket-sized energy. We call it the sport of love - not sexual love, but "All You Need Is Love" kind of love. The kind of love the world needs more of. We call it a brilliant work of art, spread over time and landscape.

Among those who have received Mr. Haddock's small gift: "woman with braces," "woman at BP," "Boars Head Sample Woman at 8th St. Publix," and "the guy in the booth in my parking garage where I park my bike." Of that last one, Mr. Haddock noted, "He seemed nonplussed." Other responses Mr. Haddock has received: "Yippee!," "It's not every day I get a flower!," "What's this?," and "Thanks Brother!"

We here at the Sport feel that Mr. Haddock deserves praise. Along with being a father and a corporate programmer, he finds time to be a modern-day artist, one who thinks in projects that seem obscure and, truthfully, sort of weird. And not necessarily the good kind of weird. But when carried out, you think, "Wow, that's kind of cool."

Mr. Haddock's other recent creative projects include Mom's Favorite Movies, in which he forced his mother to pick her top 64 movies of the past year while his friends bet - March-madness-bracket-style - on which movie she would pick each week; and Postcard Documentary, in which people could order a series of watercolor postcards, created by Mr. Haddock on a topic of his choosing, to be sent one at a time, anonymously, to an unwitting friend. (Say, Sport sent a series to his sister; she had no idea what it was, but she liked it.)

We foresee a time when Mr. Haddock's tiny flowers, nothing more than a warm or odd afterthought in a purse or pocket today, might one day catch on and, fast-forward 100 years, after Mr. Haddock is long gone, they might become the must-have, $5 million piece of art in all the blueblood Buckhead homes - a tiny picture in a tiny frame, a flower painted by a brilliant artist who once roamed Atlanta streets and handed out his work to passersby.

In other words, if you live in Atlanta and you happen upon Mr. Haddock, and he hands you a small painting of a flower, we recommend you hold tight to it.