Free Art Friday: Discovering New Artists Through Social Media

On the hunt for original art from local artists? Start with Facebook. Miami and Broward both have Free Art Fridays which give local artists a platform to share their creativity in a scavenger hunt manner. On Fridays, and even some "Spillover" Saturdays, local artists drop their work in various locations giving clues to where you can find it and all they ask in return for you receiving free art is for you to share your find on Facebook. The pieces do get found rather quickly but the flipside to this is that you at the very least get to discover local artists whose work you like, and you can contact them directly to see if they have any available pieces for you to purchase. I was fortunate enough to ask Registered Artist, the founder of the Miami chapter, a few questions.

• How did Miami Free Art Friday get started? "I started the group in December 2012 during the Friday of Art Basel. It was my friends that I trade art with in Chicago, California, Scotland and Australia who encouraged me to spread the worldwide movement to Miami".
• So it wasn't started in Miami? "It was started 3 years before I knew it existed, I was urged by a few of my International artist friends who had been doing for some time now...it was originated in Australia by MyDogSigh"
• How instrumental would you say that social media has been towards the success of Free Art Friday? Social Media has been crucial to FAF as its our way to expand and let people aware of whats going on. People have been doing art for free before FAF but it's more organized now. I recruited a few locals to help out and little by little started meeting more locals. They told someone, who told someone...etc"

If you wish to get involved with either Broward or Miami's Free Art Friday, look them up on Facebook and send a request to join the group, happy hunting.