ABOVE: Fairmont-based artist Caroline Porter places a bookmark in her mural at Graffiti Corner. Porter has placed bookmarks there several times throughout January for kids to find so they can enjoy art and discovery without a price tag.

FAIRMONT – Those who see the mural in front of Graffiti Corner might find a surprise inside the painted fish feeder’s flap.

Artist Caroline Porter has left several artwork prints and small gift cards inside the mural in the past few months. She said the project was inspired by her 4-year-old daughter.

“We love doing surprises for her, and this is our favorite coffee shop,” Porter said. “When I did the mural, I was like, ‘Let’s make it interactive so she can play with it. Let’s hide like candies in there whenever we come by.'”

In addition to this, Porter said she is glad to spread art and adventure to area youth without a price tag.

“I do a lot of art festivals, and a lot of kids come up,” she said. “Their faces light up when they see my work, and a lot of times they’ll go ask their parents if they can buy some of it. Unfortunately, they usually say, ‘No, don’t touch it, it’s too expensive,’ stuff like that.”

Bringing interactive art here follows a passion Porter said she has experienced for years.

“I love art that you can touch,” she said. “My whole life, you go to an art gallery, it’s like, don’t touch it, don’t take pictures of it, don’t look at it too long. Whenever I do artwork, I try to make it touchable. I like to break the no-touching rule in the art world.”

The prints vary between 10 different designs of Porter’s. She said there is a process involved in getting them completed.

“I hand-paint the original, and then I’ll take a really nice picture of it with really great lighting,” Porter said. “I’ll digitally edit, in case there’s some shadows, and then I will print it onto watercolor paper and then cut it out to size.”

While she originally enjoyed it being a secret, she said recently she has been letting more people know about it and posting about it on Facebook. She has also started doing themes for each month. This month is bookmarks with Porter’s art on them.

“I always associate new reading rules and New Year’s resolutions with reading more in January,” Porter said. “I was like, what better way to help encourage folks to get back into reading than giving out free bookmarks?”

For now, the art will be placed in and around the mural in front of Graffiti Corner, but if she gets a future opportunity to paint another one, Porter said she would try to do the same there as well.

So far, Porter said the reception to her project has been a lot of fun.

“I’ll get messages like, ‘Darn. We saw you there today, but we missed it,'” she said. “Somebody else grabbed it first. It’s always a tickle when somebody was like, ‘Oh, we wanted to get it.’

Currently, she wants to hide around five to seven more bookmarks, but moving forward, it might only be one to four times, as she shifts to hiding different pieces of art.

“For February, I’ll probably do miniature artworks of flower pieces,” Porter said. “March, I’ll probably stick with green nature things.”

Porter plans to continue doing this project for the foreseeable future.

In her experience as an artist in this area and elsewhere, Porter said she has not seen a project like this before. By doing this project, Porter said it means a lot for her to do something unique in this area and be successful at it.

“I am really proud of this project,” she said. “Even though it’s like a small thing, that doesn’t matter to me.”