A kiss

I saw my friend enrique walking towards me. As he was coming I reached into my pocket and pulled out one of the cards and handed it to him. He looked it over said how cute and then reached in to give me a fake kiss and then laughed. He said he loved it and asked "so you are waiting for one to come back to you?" I said yes ideally, in this big big city these will travel and at some point one would end up back in my hands, that would make my year :)   he told me, I like this, I already know who I'm gonna give this to..... :)

Laminated

I decided to experiment and laminate a couple of the cards, to make the more durable, more passable. These are the images of it. However, it felt a little weird, I showed the laminated one to a couple of friends and they didn't like them. They said, it loses all sense of the personal. The paper seemed like "I just made this for you" this seems like a prepackaged commodity, its awful. So the decision stands, I agree with them on one sense, but on the other sense its nice how durable it is now, they are much more passable. Damage resistant. Hmm

Another note passed on

I gave a friend a card a while back. She was sitting on the poofs at parsons. And she saw an exchange student who was looking a bit down. They started talking about their projects. As she was leaving she said hey I know what you need. And she reached into her wallet and pulled out the card. She handed it to him. He started grinning because of the first page and by the end of it he was laughing out loud. And said niiiice and I get a free hug!! So she gave him a hug. He said that the card made his day.... :)

A note passed on

I once gave a card of mine to a friend chloe that was having a bad day. She loved it. She came to me today and said. Thanks to your card I made a really good friend. She said " I saw a guy that id seen 2 weeks ago and I never had a chance to talk to him. So I see him again and I didn't know how to come up and just start talking to him. So I came up to him smiled and I gave him a card. He looked confused. Smiled and then read it, smiled again. Read the whole card and then just started grinning. He said so this is what nyc is about. Complete randomness. I love this. There are so many people I want to talk to but feel like I can't. This is genius, there is no akwardness. Its such a great way to just make people smile." She said now me and him are good friends. Can I have another card please? 

I made her night

I was sitting in a starbucks working on sketches, and I went outside for a cigarette. There was a girl standing outside who was working for the ACLU trying to get support for Gay Marriage in NYC. She looked like she wasn't having a good night. She looked at me and asked if I had a moment. I said sure and we started to talk, she told me all about the proposition that's going through the legislation right now, and asked if I would help them out. I told her that I could only give 5 dollars, which was all I earned at work yesterday. After it was finished, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a card. I gave it to her, and she just started to smile. She looked at me and said that I completely made her night. It felt good knowing that her night was a little better. I ran into her again a little later and she said she used me as an inspirational story. It was a very warm feeling. She had an incredible smile.

Making one card

Dive 75

Gave out cards tonight. Not all of them were done in a legit manner, but bar talk is bar talk and when people ask you what you do, its just much easier to show them. So the first card I gave was to this girl I had already been talking to, when she received it she started to grin like crazy and asked if she could keep it. I said ofcourse. The second card was given out under interesting circumstances as well, a girl was standing outside the bar and asked me for a cigarette, standing there she was complaining to a friend about boy troubles, her friend said "you are gorgeous" and I took that moment to take out one of my cards and handed it to her. She read it and looked up at me unbelievingly and said this was one of the nicest things that anyones ever done for her, I smiled and said goodbye. The 3rd card was given to a birthday girl. We exchanged a word or two earlier in the night and when she was leaving I said "happy birthday again, can I give you a little gift? You can't look at it until you leave" I handed her a card. She didn't really know what to expect, but took the card and quickly glanced at it and walked away. The fourth card was given to a guy at the bar who asked me "what's my poison?" Somehow or other we started getting into a conversation and he asked me what instrument I play? What instrument? I'm not a musician, he looks at me and says that he doesn't believe me. I tell him I'm an artist and he asks what kind. Instead of telling him I gave him the card. He started smiling and said that I'm not getting this back and he put it in his pocket. Then he said "I like that." The fifth card was given to a very awesome lady. She was a total sweetheart, but she told me that she had low self esteem, I asked her "why"... later that night, she came up to say goodbye to me and we exchanged hugs and then I said I have a little going away gift for her. She saw me take out a card and asked if it had my number or email on it, I said no, she took the card and started to read it. She looked up and stared me dead in the eyes with the most adorable smile and piercing gaze I have seen. She looked back down and asked but how am I supposed to see you again? I just smiled and shrugged my shoulders, she looked back down at the card, smiled once more at me and gave me another hug and a kiss on the cheek. Her smile really made my night :)

What they look like now

Today at a bar. I was playing pool with a abunch of friends. Somehow or other we get outside to smoke a cigarette and I end up talking to this girl named Barbie. We end up mentioning the eras we wished we grew up with and hers were the forties and fifties. I make a comment on frank sinatra and she replies "I love frank sinatra" after her comment I go through my pocket and find one of my cards that say " you're just too good to be true" with an illustration on the back that says 'can't take my eyes off of you.' Upon receiving the card she gets so happy that she starts running up to all of her friends saying "look what I got."  She seemed really happy to receive one of the cards. Seeing her so elated made me smile profusely.

I was working in my restaurant last night doing research on smiling (the emotional, medical, and economic benefits). I had a big goofy smile on my face myself. A customer sitting down engaged me in conversation saying I looked like I was thoroughly entertained. We got into a long conversation about smiling, the economy, swine flu and finally ended with him asking me what kind of artist I was and what I do. Rather than giving him the whole spiel I gave him one of the cards. He read the card and started laughing. He asked if he could keep it and even take a couple more to give to some people. I graciously gave him some cards. Upon leaving he left me a very nice tip and said thanks for the entertainment. It seems that smiling helped my economic situation, its my own little stimulus package :)

Initial prototypes

the beginning

It all started on a rainy rainy night. A friend of mine had just broken up with his girlfriend and was feeling a bit down. The rain was coming down real hard. I myself was a bit stressed out from work and family issues. That's when the idea came to me. I wanted to feel better and I wanted my friend to feel better. We decided we would just wander around nyc not caring how wet we became. I found a pen and a piece of paper in my bag. I tore the paper into little rectangles and folded the rectangles in half, making tiny booklets, a cover, two pages on the inside and a back. On the cover I wrote the word "fragile," on the inside I wrote "I think you are gorgeous," the facing page said "please pass this on to someone you feel is gorgeous," and the back had a smiley face. It was simple. We were standing around 34th st and the streets were fairly empty, people were afraid of the rain. Finally I saw a lady walking by with a bike, while talking on her cell phone. I looked over at my friend and gave him a card. I told him to chase her down and give her a card. He looked at me confused at first but then ran after her. From where I was standing I couldn't hear the conversation. I saw him talking to her and then I saw him walk away. She stood there confused, and then this gigantic grin just enveloped her face, she looked up at us confused, looked like there was something she wanted to say but we were already gone. He told me the conversation... "excuse me ma'am, you dropped this. I didn't drop anything. No really I saw this fall out of your back pocket. No it really didn't, that's not mine. Yes it is, look I saw you drop it, just take it, goodnight." My friend walked back with a gigantic grin on his face, he seemed to be smiling more than she was. We continued passing out 14 more cards throughout the evening. And finally left for home with a much better state of mind then when we started.