New Thing #292--At The Sound Of The Bell

This morning I restrung a broken wind chime that had been hanging on my deck. The chime has a resin cardinal sitting on a resin branch with a metal bell hanging underneath the branch. The bell makes a beautiful sound when the wind blows, but the location must get too much wind, because I've had to put the whole thing back together more than once. Rather than hang it up in the same place again after today's repair, I decided to put it somewhere where more people could enjoy it, so today I hung a wind chime on a tree in a parking lot.

My inspiration for this Thing was the Website Learning To Love You More:

Learning to Love You More is comprised of work made by the general public in response to assignments given by artists Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher. Participants accept an assignment, complete it by following the simple but specific instructions, send in the required report (photograph, text, video, etc), and see their work posted on-line.

The specific directions for my assignment were:

Make or buy or find a wind chime. Hang the wind chime on a tree branch in a median strip at a largish shopping center parking lot. Leave the wind chime there.

I took my newly-fixed chime and drove to a strip mall on Manchester Road. There were several trees to choose from, but I selected a crab apple tree that was at the far east edge of the parking lot. I picked a tree branch close to the bottom, so the chime would have room to move, and maneuvered the hang cord onto the branch until it wouldn't go any farther.

The wind chime blended in with the red crab apples, and was almost unnoticeable. I imagine if it's still there when the tree loses its leaves it will be more visible.

I didn't fulfill all the requirements of the assignment, which were to take a photo of the wind chime on the tree in the parking lot and make an audio recording of the wind chime. There was no noticeable breeze blowing, so my chime didn't make any noise. Nothing to record! However, I had fun doing the assignment whether or not I get "credit" for it.