Paint it forward

Local artist gives an inch so you can take a ‘Smile’

 Five years ago Bren Bataclan left 30 paintings scattered throughout Boston — in schools, hospitals, senior citizen centers and T stops for passersby to take for free. The only catch? The attached notes requested that each painting’s new owner “promise to smile at random people more often.”

Bataclan’s Smile Boston Project was so successful he turned it into a career and a worldwide pursuit, where he would leave at least 15 unique paintings featuring colorful, whimsical characters in one city each month.

Typically, the paintings are adopted in three to 30 minutes, he says, depending on where he leaves them.

“When I leave them near schools, they get picked up in 30 seconds, because students have no qualms about taking things for free. But the folks who are working are a little more cynical and think it might be tied into some kind of product placement. It’s an interesting study of humans.”

The fortunate finders then have the chance to give Bataclan feedback on his Web site, which ranges from simple thanks to touching tales. “In Febuary ’04,” he recalls, “I left a painting in Harvard Square on a gray, snowy day. The woman who took it was wearing funky, pink shades with really dark lenses. I didn’t hear back from her until spring. It was a bright, sunny day, and she came to my studio, still wearing the same shades. When she took them off, half of her head was caved in. It turns out she picked up my painting during her first week of chemo for a brain tumor. She said [the painting] helped her cope. We just hugged and cried. That’s when the project went beyond me seeking smiles for myself.”