Missed Connections is a blog by illustrator Sophie Blackall of Brooklyn, NY. Sophie scours Craigslist’s “Missed Connections” section to find posts that she creates delicate and whimsical art to illustrate. As she puts it: “Every day hundreds of strangers reach out to other strangers on the strength of a glance, a smile or a blue hat. Their messages have the lifespan of a butterfly. I’m trying to pin a few of them down.”. I think I’m in love. Some of my favorites below.
Ack! ‘Round 7pm or so… I was browsing the shelves and saw you on the other side. I swear I glimpsed our entire future together in that brief moment. It was beautiful. And then someone asked you for the time. I mean c’mon, who doesn’t have a damn time-telling device of some sort these days!
Oh, if only I’d thought of that.
I was the face painter at party today
and you were there.
jake?
jason?
john?
something or another.
you had a nice face.
i would of liked to have stayed and chatted but me and my co worker had other parties to attend to.
I saw you for maybe a second or two.
I’ve read missed-connections before and wondered why people just didn’t say something then and there. Now I understand… perhaps it’s because the moment is extraordinary; containing a fullness of its own… and the thought that this person across from me is not a part of my everyday life, and at any second will disappear, didn’t even occur to me… it seemed that we were in whatever it was together, and that sort of connection rarely, if ever, happens between strangers, so my mind was a little slow on registering that there would be no “some other time” if neither of us asked for the others phone or email.
Now, hours later, the ripples created by those few tender seconds still gently rock something within me…
and I become a missed-connections poster.
Would you be interested in having tea or going on a ride?
Check out her whole collection here. And guess what! There’s a book.
Credits: Polka Dots in the Strand, I Was the Face Painter at the Party Today, We Passed Each Other When the Sky Was Pink by Sophie Blackall
