Love I Found
When Instagram was first created in 2010, I created an account called Lovelyfinds (it is now changed to Tricialcohn since 2020). I created the hashtag #ifoundlove and shared images of love. These images could not be manmade. They could only be found and created by natural causes. My goal for the project was to gather 244 pictures of love images and then make a giant art collage for my home. It instantly became an online community and my friends and family were always finding love IRL (in real life) and sharing their love with me.
Then Drew Barrymore went on the Ellen show to promote her “brilliant idea.” She told Ellen that she sees love everywhere and she started a hashtag called #finditineverything and of course her celebrity name caused publishers to jump at the chance to publish a book of her images. Her hashtag quickly overtook the #ifoundlove one I created.
I was a little bummed out about it. I took my 244 images, made a big collage and hung it in my closet.
I decided that the love we find and share is a personal experience and a reflection of how we see this world. Drew had her experience and I had mine so I stopped being envious of her fame that took away my limelight and instead appreciate the fact, people are finding love out in this big bad ugly mean world.
So I told my daughter and husband that when I die, I want all the pictures of the love I found shown at my funeral. This is the love I have chosen to see in the world. Whenever I find love, I immediately say a prayer for something about someone. It makes me take a break from the list of things in my head and create good and happy thoughts for others instead. Finding love got my eyes off the phone and out in the world. Finding love made me look at things with a different perspective. Instead of looking ahead, I looked up, looked down, looked for the negative space behind the object. I look at reflections in the water, the shapes of individual rain drops, the shapes of the clouds in the sky, or the leaves on a tree. There is just so much love and beauty in our world its overwhelming.
I’ve just started curating all my #ifoundlove images on pinterest and I would love for you to share the love you find with me. You can also see the love images used in my graphics for this website, TLC3publishing. Every picture was taken or shared by me.
If you find love, please follow me on instagram and tag the picture #ifoundlove. It will be fun to see the community of people who are living in this world who choose to search for beauty.