Rachael Wood wants you to be happy. So, the Shirlington resident is making and leaving small pieces of art around the neighborhood for people to find and keep. She calls it the Joyful Art Project.
The idea is simple: She makes trees and other landscape images out of wool and embroidery floss on 3- to 4-inch circular frames and leaves them in random places with notes explaining her intent.
“I have all sorts of notes, but the generic one just says, ‘In an attempt to push back against a world that can feel heavy, I have started leaving a small piece of joy in the form of art around the neighborhood. If you find this, it’s yours to keep, or I invite you to pass it on to someone who brings you or may need joy,'” Wood says.
Seeing someone take her art is so meaningful, she says. “This is one of my favorite things,” Wood says. “I’ve only seen it a few times, but it’s had the reaction I’ve wanted—curiosity, simple delight. I’ve even seen people notice, but not take. That’s OK, too.”
Although she studied art history at James Madison University, Wood says she’s always considered herself an admirer of art—not an artist. But during the pandemic, she began experimenting with fiber arts such as macrame and crochet, “to do something with my hands other than [play] Candy Crush.” When she lost her job as a contractor last April, Wood ramped up production. The stockpile in her apartment filled up quickly.
“I wanted to give it away, but who do you give it to?” says Wood, who also sells some of her work through an Etsy store.
Finders Keepers
Last July, she landed on the answer: anyone. She leaves pieces at the bus stop outside her apartment building, on the fence around the Four Mile Run community garden, and on park benches along the Four Mile Run and Washington and Old Dominion trails where she runs.
“I’ve left well over 200, 300 pieces since last July,” Wood says. “I lost my job at the same time DOGE happened … and I heard from a lot of federal workers who had found them. It’s amazing that something so small ripples out. People said, ‘This is the hope I needed,’ and I’m like, ‘This little thing?’ It really can mean something. To feel like I had a little impact on somebody has been amazing.”
She’s now working with Genelle Schuler, librarian supervisor at Arlington Public Library’s Shirlington branch, to feature the art as part of the Incubator: Art in Public Libraries program, which spotlights local artists.
They created a scavenger hunt called “I Spy Joy.” Ten pieces of Wood’s art hide in plain sight in the new books and adult books sections and on walls throughout the Shirlington library branch. Visitors find them and fill out a form to be entered into a drawing to win one of the pieces. The scavenger hunt runs through May 19.
“I saw this partnership with Rachael as another opportunity to promote art, community and connection,” Schuler says. “Everyone can benefit from a little extra joy right now, and scavenger hunts are mini adventures that bring out the kid in all of us.”
Small Works, Big Impact
Wood takes pride in becoming a part of Arlington’s art community. “I thought I had to be in New York to be around art, and this is not true at all,” she says. “In this area, this art community has been so amazing and welcoming. I did not know it was so vibrant.”
Part of that was discovering free little art galleries, where she also leaves her work. That’s how she met Stacey Schwartz, who runs the Free Little Art Gallery in Dominion Hills.
“She left her first piece [in my gallery] last August, along with a beautiful note,” Schwartz says. Wood has left about six more pieces since then.
In December 2025, Wood donated to Schwartz’s Free Little Art Kit effort. Each month, an artist donates to the gallery kits containing everything you need to make your own art. Schwartz says she put 10 of Wood’s kits out at a time, and they were gone within two days.
“I love everything about Rachael’s project, from the size and scale of her pieces, to the aesthetics, to the story behind why she started the project,” Schwartz says. “I love that her art can bring comfort, surprise and maybe even a sense of hope to people exactly when they need it most.”
Joy on the Go
Wood says it takes her at least 30 minutes to make a piece. Her production varies each week, depending on her schedule. She found work again in February, as a paralegal in Leesburg.
In the meantime, her art is going national. She is making 150 pieces to distribute to the residents of the New Jersey nursing home where her father lives. During protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis earlier this year, she sent some pieces there. An aunt undergoing cancer treatment in Seattle brings Wood’s art to her chemo infusion center.
But the local love holds a special place in Wood’s heart: “I was walking out in the park, and my husband said, ‘That’s one of your pieces,’ and I said, ‘I didn’t put it there.’ I had given it away months before, and somebody went back out and left it. That is amazing to me. That’s the whole point of this: just keep rippling outward.”