I have developed a daily practice of combing through NYC's craigslist pages, specifically the for sale ads and missed connections, and saving anything that strikes me.

Within this public forum designed for small-scale transactions and notes, I’ve discovered moments of still life, portraiture, and collage; patterns in technique, color, and voice; acts of obfuscation, poetry, and anonymous vulnerability. As a collection, the found material serves as evidence of a time and place.

Most content is destined for a short life on craigslist (30 days max), so in saving to my hard drive I feel as though I'm rescuing beautiful digital treasure from its imminent death.

Issue two of surface treasure is made up of 150 of my favorite images and 17 of my favorite missed connections posts that I collected throughout May 2025.

I take no credit for the construction of the images or words; all credit is due to their original, anonymous makers. All content was sourced directly from newyork.craigslist.org.

Layout and design by me

If you'd like to browse my full collection, you can find images here and text here. These channels are updated daily.

xoxo, Maddie