Artists welcome your suggestions

“Hey, would you like to make a suggestion?”

That’s the question two New York City artists will be asking this weekend as they roam the Westside with an enormous suggestion box. Saturday afternoon, they’ll hit Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade with their clipboards and pens, asking people to write their ideas on slips of paper and slide them through the top slot. They’ll throw a party Sunday in Venice, where they’ll collect even more suggestions and randomly retrieve them for posting on a wall.

“Explore your elbows.” “Do what you love today.” “Learn how to be a good kisser.” Those were among the 350 suggestions Otis Kriegel and Michael McDevitt collected in New York and compiled into the recently released book, “Suggestion.” Other popular themes: three-day weekends, free beer and legalized marijuana.

Kriegel and McDevitt have been collecting suggestions since 2002, when they first went out with their stenciled black-and-white box. Their goal: to inspire conversation, make people laugh and provoke thought, Kriegel said.

“Some people stop. Some people run away. We get every response,” said Kriegel, 32. “We’re about creating art that encourages participation. That’s what all our pieces are about -- blurring the boundary between the piece of work and the participant.”

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Suggestion party, House of Campari, 1224 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice. 4-7 p.m. Sunday. Free, but RSVP required. www.suggestionbook.com