PonderMonster DMB Collection 2015 - dMb LoVE and Lyric Paintings

HOLY SMOKES, what an amazing treasure hunt for 2015!!!!!

Before you continue, join in on future art drop treasure hunts by following PonderMonster on these links Instagram, Facebook or Twitter

Okay now... This adventure needs to be broken up into a couple of blogs. 18 art drops is too much to read (and write) all at once, so they will be separated into lyrics & LoVE blog, and a dMb puzzle blog.

Just so you know, of the18 dMb paintings dropped, all but one was found and responded to, which might be a new record! One of the Denver, CO dMb LoVE paintings may be lost forever and there are also a couple of "Much LoVE" paintings along the way are still unanswered, but I'll hold onto hope that maybe someday, they'll resurface.

This project was extremely fun to do and make, and I hope you all had an amazing time playing along with me. Even if you didn't find one, know that it means the WORLD to me that you tried, or even sat back and watched it happen.

The PonderMonster dMb LoVE Paintings (Hidden inside the venue during the shows):

 

These dMb LoVE paintings were created for 2 Denver, CO shows and 3 Gorge shows.


The PonderMonster dMb Lyric Paintings (Gorge only, hidden during the daytime outside of venue):

"Let You Down"

"Dreaming Tree"

"Big Eyed Fish"

"Shotgun"

Turns out, they played none of these songs...

HOWEVER, they were all found and spectacularly responded to!

The Letter:

These letters are stashed and attached to each painting to help guide the finder to respond in the way I'm hoping for.  It's taken a long time to craft the words just right and is WAY more difficult than one would imagine to get the proper desired response. It's quite the social experiment.


Okay, this is a bit frustrating. I'm searching around looking for photo responses for 2 of these LoVE paintings, and they're gone/deleted/vanished/disappeared... GAH! Well, if they're found they'll be added in later. In the meantime, here are the 5 hiding spots of the "dMb LoVE" paintings and their respective finders (2 of them).

Denver Night 1 (Fiddler's Green):

Many apologies, however out of my control, cell service this night was non-existant. So this one was left up to fate. Planted between set break, and still there after the show ended (went back to check on it).

PonderMonster in the pit, photobombed by new friends!

The hiding spot: in the tree cave along the Alice in Wonderland area.

The finder: UNANSWERED. However, I might know what happened to it. Hoping anyways. As mentioned above, I went back to check on it, because cell service was bunk that night and I couldn't upload the photo, it was still there. Kinda bummed, but had hope for someone to see it. As I watched it from a few feet away, someone walked up to it, touched and left. WTF?! I then heard an uproar of giggling behind me. Upon turning around, there were to guys laying down looking up at the trees laughing. Trippers. YAY! (From what I could gather anyways, I suppose one should not assume). Anyways, it's aways fun to recognize and see a potential adventure/task to send a tripper on. My lady and I go and sit next to them and say "hello". We strike up a bit of a conversation and come to find out that they are brothers and are experiencing many new things for the first time this evening. So, I tell them that there is a special surprise within their space if they can find it. A treasure, to hunt. They sit up, intrigued and start looking around. They can't see very well, and can't stop laughing. So I point out the direction of where to go and stress that they mustn't leave this area without finding this treasure, which I further explain is a small painting. As I explain this, he pulls out his phone and video records my every word. I tell him that I am PonderMonster on Instagram, and he goes on to tell me his name, @TheBrandonSpecial, and that it's the name of a sandwich that he orders regularly at a food joint in Boulder, CO. Consisting of grilled string cheese and hotdogs. He's not very active on social media, but hopefully he'll read this and will be able to fill in the rest of the story. Fingers crossed.

Denver Night 2:
This time, to avoid being thwarted by crappy cell service, I went early to the venue to make this drop. Put it out in the open in a nearby spot that I can watch! Saw a few people take a look at it, even take its picture and touch it slightly. Searched the webs for it, with no such luck. Then as people began to fill into the venue, it was only a matter of time until someone came to snatch it up. This is exactly what happened.

The Finder:
As I was in the middle of a conversation with my seat neighbors, a figure out of the corner of my eye ran down the aisle and began bouncing around! Turning my head I see a well known fan of mine, and friend, snag the painting and take a selfie with it. She ran off in pure delight, and I couldn't be happier. She's been after one of these for a long time! She later sent me this photo, which must've have been taken a few minutes later back at her seat. I LOVE it. Crowd and venue in the background, and a painting in the hands of a well deserved finder. Congratulations Barb H.!

The Gorge 2015!

 (Where's Waldo?)
"...man, he's just not trying anymore."
- Bart Simpson

P.S. Best Simpson's reenactment moment I've had in quite a while. Love this photo!

Caught in the act!
Flipping through Instagram, someone I had NEVER met spotted and posted this. Tagged me. LOL! At first it was a little creepy, but then it brought a big smile to my face. Sent them a message back saying to come over and say hi and not be such a creeper.

I love my fans... here's my creeper, who's not creepy at all. Thanks for coming to say hi! Pretty flattered to be recognized!

Gorge Night 1:


The Hiding Spot...

FOUND!

Gorge Night 2:

The Hiding Spot...

Found!

Gorge Night 3:

Okay, this one is a bit of a story... It was a super long day for me, and long story short (which I'll explain in the next blog) I was doing a project with Boyd all weekend and it ate up all of my time. It was an AMAZING experience to say the least.

Running late to the show, the so-called "50th" DMB Gorge show, my soon to be wife and I were in search of a show poster because it also happened to be her 80th Dave show. We had missed our chance and all the booths were sold out. We finished looking at the last booth at the top of the lawn and started walking back to our seats. Someone passing by said, "Hey! I like your sparkly jacket!" Referring to my pre-wife's shiny attire. We started talking about how everyone keeps commenting on it. As we walked further down the lawn, someone else shouted at us. Thinking it was another person mentioning her jacket, I turned around and said, "Thanks!" Which just shows where my head was at, not in the moment.

Sarah, my pre-wife, looks at me and says, "No, they just said 'Hey PonderMonster'!" What? I got recognized? Sweet! It was a married couple, smiling and sitting on the lawn. I went up to them and apologized that I didn't hear them. They asked me where I was going to hide tonight's painting. Pulling the painting out of my pocket, I said, "Oh what this painting? I have no idea what you're talking about." 

We all had a laugh, and I introduced myself and they halfway jokingly said they had an extra poster and would trade it for the painting. I looked at Sarah, and thought to myself that I would do anything for her to get the poster she so very much desired. So, naturally, I agreed.

BUT, there was a catch. I told them that I HAD to hide it, because people are waiting for it, and I need to do something. I put it by his foot and said that they'd have to "find it". The man looked up at me and said, "Hold on." He slumped over, as to appear passed out. Perfect! I put it in his jacket and posted this photo with the caption:

Find this guy on the lawn before he awakens and it's yours.

My fans went nuts! I saw a few people running around the lawn searching for this guy, hahaha! It was pretty fun to watch, and I'm thinking that I may ACTUALLY do this to someone in 2016.

FOUND!

This is the face of a VERY happy fan, at the right place, at the right time, with the right words, and the right offer. Poster in hand, we all hug and tell each other to have a wonderful show. I would later end up having that poster signed by Boyd accompanied with a setlist of one of the most epic shows I've ever seen!

THE STORY GETS BETTER! Turns out we shared a common friend. My old college roommate/long-time friend mentioned in the comments that this guy is his BEST friend from the good old days and asked how the hell we knew about each other?! Well, we didn't know each other at all and we came together through DMB and PonderMonster completely organically! So amazing how small and wonderful this world is. We all now keep in touch, and they have even commissioned some private works from PonderMonster since this photo was taken. LoVE!!!!

Okay, now on to the lyric paintings!


LYRIC PAINTINGS
Still with me? Good. I know it's a much bigger blog than normal. You're doing great!

These babies couldn't be left up to the chance of NOT being found, so they were carefully hiding in the day time outside of the venue around the surrounding Gorge community and areas.


SHOTGUN

The first lyric inspired painting, "Shotgun", was dropped Thursday on the sign at the entrance of Cave B.

The Hiding Spot
This is the FIRST of 4 PonderMonster lyric paintings!! Who's gonna get it?

FOUND!

Congratulations Emily G. for knowing exactly where to go to get the first of 4 lyric painting drops!


DREAMING TREE
This painting was meant to be dropped inside the general camping area, but they wouldn't let me in. Bummer, but good to know they have good security over there. I'm glad this one was found. I put love into all my paintings, but this one means so much to me as a lifelong professional dream chaser. Hoping that it would be found by someone that cared, then this happened...

The Hiding Spot
Every path to a dream has to start somewhere. Why not here?

OMG THE FINDERS!!! (From Canada)

and another... Upper left corner:

Congratulations to this extended family of finders! This response warms my soul to no end. Thank you so much for the love and all your hard work trying to find me on the interwebs.

BIG EYED FISH
This painting will always remind me, and hopefully others, to be yourself. Love yourself, and know that everything you are is everything you're supposed to be.

Night 2, running late again... same Boyd scenario as was mentioned before, my fans had been waiting all day with no PonderMonster drop. Sometimes it pays to be late, so I decided to leave this one outside the fence of the venue to someone else who might be running a little behind, and hoping to still find a painting. PS, the will call line happened to be INSANE this night. I love how this one looks like the fish is looking to the other side.

Some of you have mentioned that the lyrics are incorrect. Well, that all depends on which version of the song you listen to. This particular version is from Gorge 2014 night 1, and has a super special place in my heart for magical

The Hiding Spot
A treat for anyone running late, or stuck in the will call line. Just remember, fighting to be yourself has a much greater payoff in the long run than fighting to fit in... Have a great show.

FOUND!!!

Congratulations to @cbrandonchapman who not only found this piece, but sent this EPIC photo, complete with tiger rug!!!! Thanks to him, this picture may have changed the PonderMonster game entirely. Nothing definitive yet, but I'm thinking there needs to be some kind of finder photo contest where the winner will get an extra super special amazing gift/prize!

Every time I look at this picture, I certainly give a hardy chuckle!

Did you survive the cold and wind night 2? Yeah, I barely did either... damn.


LET YOU DOWN
This painting was created BEFORE it was played for the first time since 1997 at Deer Creek 2015, but holy smokes I can't believe they brought it back! Unfortunately, as you already know, they did NOT play it at the Gorge this year. Although, the night 3 setlist was exactly what Dave said it was going to be, "A humdinger!"

The Hiding Spot

Happy night 3. You guys are amazing and have made this weekend unforgettable for me. SO SO SO much LoVE for ALL of you... seriously. 

FOUND!!!
Just realized I never re-posted this, bad PonderMonster!!! Sorry...

Congratulations to one of my favorite fans, @onesweetshorty! Much like myself, and I'm sure many others, you were hoping they'd hit us with this song that night, but they didn't. It's all good though, because you got this paintings and the night ROCKED!!! 

NEXT BLOG

Will include the stories behind the PonderMonsterDMBpuzzle and this Much LoVE painting. Yep. That's inside Boyd's bus.

To Conclude

Words can not express my gratitude towards each and EVERY one one of you for playing along with my little game. It means the world to me, and as long as I am able, PonderMonster will do these treasure hunts til his last breath on this little Pale Blue Dot that we call home. It makes me happy, it gives me purpose, it spreads love, and fights evil in this world. I've been through too much pain in this life, and experienced first hand the things in this world that have been completely destroying humanity. The violence, hate, darkness and destruction can only be fought with ONE thing. Not politics, not parades, not prayers, not counter-hate... LoVE. Love will win this battle to make the world a better place. It's the ONLY thing I've ever found that people will react to for the better. There's no division with love. We all want love, and to be loved. I listen to Dave because I LISTEN to Dave. Hopefully you all do too, but if you don't, listen again and know that he's right.

"Love. What more is there?"

So until the next blog post, full of adventures, please take the time to share love in any way you can. Give. Give. Give. Give! I've have gained more in my life than I ever knew possible, and all I had to do was give everything away. "When you give, you begin to live. You get the world." It's true.

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In further news, Gorge 2016 was announced, and PonderMonster's hunt will continue, but ONLY with your help as finances my make it near impossible.

PRINTS: Available soon! They are in the process of being made and are part an effort of raising money for PonderMonster to return to the Gorge in 2016. I'll need your help, otherwise it might not happen!

Stay tuned on how you can help, and as ALWAYS...

Much LoVE

-PonderMonster

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REMEMBER: Join in on future art drop treasure hunts by following PonderMonster on these links Instagram, Facebook or Twitter

PS... on 9.19.2015 I married my LoVE, my best friend, my adventure partner for life... my @SarahSparkles41

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