Surface Finds 5/15/2026

Cross-posted to my Patreon as part of a continued series there.

I went to Lefferts House today to check out the Shirley Chisholm exhibit Riah has been working on. I had made a few small edits to the graphics myself, after learning that I could access Adobe software for free at the Brooklyn Central Library, and got to see them printed up.

After that I took a walk in the park where I saw baby turtles, a great blue heron fishing in the lake, a blue jay, chipmunks, a red winged blackbird, hard green mulberries preparing for June, a mother robin feeding worms to her two massive fledglings, and Mallard ducklings browsing the duckweed with their mother.

A sparrow was bathing aggressively in the lake and when I looked in the spot where it was splashing, there were a couple of shards of pottery, so I decided to head out along the shoreline and got it in my head to check the spot where I’d lost that one shard before. The geese were unbothered by my approach.

I collected several pieces of pottery before arriving at the same spot and seeing this piece lying openly in the middle of the path -- at first I was certain was the same as the one I lost, and I doubted whether it had really fallen into the lake. I didn’t actually see it land, it just evaporated from my hand, and didn’t turn up when I searched the ground.

But now I think it’s a different shard of the same original pieces of pottery. It has the same markings but I believe they were in different spots. It also may be the same piece but only half of the shard, since it has a recent break on one end. I think I do recall the design where the break is being in the center.

I spent some time absolutely convinced it was same piece, regardless, and mildly annoyed with it for screwing around. Though I accepted that it seems to be in the nature of these blue and white pottery pieces to play hide-and-seek, considering that I lost and found the other one twice, and it, too, was found lying openly in the center of a path.

Milo Wissig (he/him) — small paintings, long [th]reads, trans rites, OSHA violations. More work: Patreon | Website | Instagram | Substack