Missed connections

In the U.S. there’s a popular way of tracking down strangers who left a mark: Craigslist’s missed connections section. The site is all the rage especially among New Yorkers, who spend much of their time surrounded by strangers, between busy commutes, swarming sidewalks and jam-packed events, in a fascinating mosaic of glances, unsaid words and what if?-moments. A suspended dimension that Brooklyn-based illustrator Sophie Blackall chose to immortalize in Missed Connections, an ongoing series of paintings that will be published in a book in 2012.

Every day Blackall, who is originally from Australia, scours pages and pages of ads in search of something that might catch her eye, and turns random encounters into beautiful, soft-colored drawings full of emotions, adding her own twist. Like her Phoenix w / Crutches, in which we see a blonde boy with flushed cheeks piggy-backing a seemingly-injured, dark-orange, loving-eyed phoenix wrapped up around him to its last feather. Phoenix w / crutches-I would love to carry you around piggy back until you can walk again…, reads the text.

At first, it was difficult for Blackall to select the ads. “I went about in a panic with my net, and ached to let so many flutters away unread, unrecorded,” she says. “But then I realized that each day brings new desire, new loss, regret and especially new hope.”

Blackall is not the only artist to have fallen under the spell of Craigslist and other missed connections sites (one such website, Subway Crushes, is dedicated exclusively to encounters on U.S. subways). Kansas-based artist Paul Shortt recreated some of Craigslist’s missed connections ads in the locations where they took place. And earlier this year, Three Rivers Press published I Saw You, edited by Julia Wertz, an anthology of comics based on collected missed connection ads from Craigslist, weeklies and newspapers. Filmmaker Mary Robertson was also inspired by the idea of random encounters, and is making a documentary to capture New Yorkers’ missed connections; most of which, she says, can lead to disappointment, as happened to veterinary technician Andrea Annette. Her missed connection, a handsome admirer whom she met on the subway and managed to track down on Craigslist, turned out to be married.

As for Blackall, she says she doesn’t really seek the happy ending. “I’m drawn to the unfinished story, to the what if, “she says. When visiting Craigslist, Blackall looks for striking subject lines, focusing on ads that are unusual, funny or visually-appealing: Billowy Red Scarf Girl; Furry Arms Under a Yellow Umbrella; Seeking Girl Who Bit Me Twice Last Night While We Were Dancing. In Hipster Chick Who Passed Gas.on the A Train, Blackall drew a man and a woman sitting close on the subway, a dark, vaporous cloud emerging between them and the woman looking away, indifferent, embarrassed and amused. The colors are playful, as is the tone of the cartoons: bright yellow, light blue and pink. Remember?—reads the ad—Uptown A train. Sunday at around 9pm. I was the black dude reading Bukowski’s Post Office. You were reading the Arts and Leisure section. You passed wind rather loudly and started chuckling. I’d like to see you again. The flatulence was not a turn-off.

Blackall says the response to her work, made with Chinese ink and watercolor and assembled on her blog, http://missedconnectionsny.blogspot.com, has been extraordinary. So much so that people have started sending ads to her directly. “The project seems to strike a chord, which makes me really happy,” says Blackall. “Under the surface, there’s an ember of optimism. Which warms even the most cynical. There’s something undeniably seductive about serendipity.”

Tell us about your missed connections on the Côte d’Azur and send us your stories of serendipity!

Carola Mamberto is an award-winning international journalist originally from Genoa and Nice. A recent graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, she has worked in media and documentary filmmaking in Italy, France, Monaco, Belgium, England and the U.S c.mamberto@mediterra.com