1000 Journals August 3, 2008
Here is how the film begins:
If you ask a kindergarten class how many of them are artists, they’ll all raise their hands. Ask the same question of 6th graders, and maybe one third will respond. Ask high school grads, and few will admit to it. (explained in Orbiting the Giant Hairball)
What happens to us growing up? We begin to fear criticism, and tend to keep our creativity to ourselves. Many people keep journals, of writing or sketching, but not many share them with people. (when was the last time a friend invited you to read their diary?) You will not be judged here. And you will have company. This is for you. For everyone.
Where the hell have I been all these years? How is it that I haven’t heard (ever!) about the 1000 journals?
Yesterday I went to see the documentary film called 1000 Journals with my friend Thi Thi. It is about a san Francisco graphic designer/artist called Someguy who decided in 2000 to send out 1000 blank journals into the world. He mailed many, gave many of them to friends who were traveling, left others in random spots in the city (next to a public phone, in the SF Weekly “box”, on a park bench, in cafes and bars…)
On the last page of each 220 page blank journal are instructions: to write/draw/paint in the journal, keep it for 2 weeks and then pass it on. People are asked to scan what they wrote and submit it to the website created for this purpose only. When the journal is complete, it is to be sent back to Someguy. It took 3 years for the first journal to make it back “home”. He has received more since (can’t remember how many), but certainly not close to as many as he’d like to. The project has turned into a search for the missing journals.
1000 Journals has become a movement…Andrea Kreuzhage, the filmmaker (comes from Heidelberg, Germany but has lived in Los Angeles since the 90s) became obsessed with the whole concept of these journals. This inspired her to make this amazing documentary film. She tracks down some of the people who have contributed to the journals (travelled all over the world to interview them), recreates the process Someguy went through to get this project launched. We were lucky enough to get to meet her after the film and ask her questions.
From the get-go of the film I thought my heart was going to explode. Thi Thi and I both kept giggling and squeezing each other’s arms every few minutes. This film, this idea, this creative process is so inspiring and full of life. The idea of having people express their creativity in a journal (something many people already do, but unfortunately too many others don’t), know that it will travel the world, use the internet to document and share the pages one by one is to me fantastic!
I needed to see this film. It was the nudge I needed since I’ve been feeling a bit depressed and uncreative lately.
This film will show this week only at the Roxie Theatre in the Mission district until Thursday, August 7th. If you are in the San Francisco area, try to see it. If not, you might want to check out the website to see where it will be shown in the future: www.1000journals.com
Here’s an interview I just found: Andrea Kreuzhage and Someguy riffle through “1000 Journals”
Collecting Stories: Jonathan Harris on TED.com July 25, 2008
Recently I subscribed to TED.com and have been watching the talks as they come in. There are some really amazing ones…this one that I watched just a few minutes ago made me feel like there are ways I can still incorporate all the things I watch, listen to and think about into something creative. This is Jonathan Harris’ way of gathering stories, photographs, feelings and creating really interesting projects…
Also to access the site he mentions called “We feel fine”, go here
Sunday at the Renegade Fair ~ Part 2 July 17, 2008
Sunday at the Renegade Fair Part 1 can be found here.
Mucca Pazza at the Renegade Fair ~ Part 3
Here are a few more of the booths that I particularly liked as I wandered the aisles of amazing creativity:
This young woman, Jenifer from Sprout Studio, was thrilled to have her picture taken. I walked into her booth because I saw this skateboard with umbrellas painted on it hanging on a black wall. It was simple yet popped out like a red butterfly on a pile of ash. I also liked the way she displayed all of her other pieces…
http://www.sproutstudio.net/
http://www.sproutstudio.net/
http://www.sproutstudio.net/
Ach Ach Liebling (means: “Oh Oh Darling” in German) is the brainchild of Joanne Petrone, a local San Franciscan artist. I am a sucker for anything organic and just the fact that she had her necklaces displayed on a big ‘ol piece of driftwood did it for me. Then I actually found her pieces to be really interesting and varied:
http://www.achachliebling.com
www.achachliebling.com
And then there was the name: 11:11 Enterprises…well, not really. I was first attracted to the amount of color splashed out on this table. At closer look I saw that it was all very well organized…oh, they are wallets, and card holders, and passport/check covers…whoa! that’s a lot of stuff. So I took a photo…and then I saw the name of her business. I am born on 11.11 so I asked her why she calls her business 11:11 and she told me that she loves the time. I wish I had asked her a bit more because I am sure she had more to say. Check out her website here (and she has a few interesting blogs):
www.eleveneleven.net
www.eleveneleven.net
I bought a little orange vinyl purse/pouch from Miss Alison just because I really needed one. Her handmade pouches of all sizes and shapes are really colorful and playful:
www.missalison.com
www.missalison.com
I didn’t spend too much time at this booth, but I again loved the colors and the amazing amount of products on display with a common theme: sketches of a cute little girl. Jen Lukas has got them painted on little wooden squares, on canvas bags (the bags were REALLY cute!), even mouse pads. That’s what you call a niche:
www.jenlukas.com
Amy McClure from Olaria Studios (Olaria means pottery in Portuguese) makes jewelry out of clay. Her colors and designs are what pulled me to her booth:
http://www.olariastudio.com
These next photos are from booths that I didn’t spend too much time at but did find interesting:
Sara Paloma Pottery: www.sarapaloma.com
www.sarapaloma.com
Hilary Williams Fine Art: www.hilaryatthecircus.com
www.hilaryatthecircus.com
www.hilaryatthecircus.com
Mediums To Masses: www.mediumstomasses.com
www.mediumstomasses.com
And last but not least, the ETSY booth. If you are interested in handcrafted art (to make yourself or purchase) go to this amazing site called etsy: www.etsy.com
You can easily create your own page and display/sell/share what you make with millions of other creatives. I myself have dabbled in jewelry, but I have not touched any of my tools in over a year. I am what Barbara Sher would call a “scanner”…I am into so many things, they come and go into my life…and then they come again! So when I do touch my tools again I will share that with my readers.
www.etsy.com
Eric Maisel Creativity Central July 16, 2008
At the beginning of this year, I decided to commit myself to joining Eric Maisel’s new endeavor: a blog about creativity. He sent out a note to all his newsletter subscribers and asked people to join in this new idea of posting something on a regular basis on his blog. These correspondents come from all over the world and post mostly in English, but also in other languages (I already posted mine in English and German). Well, the time finally came and the blog was launched this week. He sent out an email last week asking people to send in their first posting. As I can see from the blog, the feedback is tremendous. He has been posting about 10 to 15 per day since Sunday.
Why have I decided to do this? It is my way of putting myself out there, of taking a few little steps towards connecting with other like-minded people. Of taking risks. And I am happy I did. My life is becoming more and more what I wish for. A more creative, connected, deep, challenging, varied life. I have been connecting with a few new people who like to write, think, create, question…
Here is the link to my posting and all the others you might want to read as well. There are some pretty amazing writings on that blog!
Discovering Eugene O’Neill July 15, 2008
Should I confess that I have never read ANY of Eugene O’Neill’s plays? That I didn’t even know he was a playwright? That I had heard his name but didn’t know ANYTHING about him until last night at about 1am when I couldn’t sleep and changed channels to PBS’ American Experience? Well, I guess I just confessed.
Holy shit! How did I miss this experience? I love and constantly long for moments like this. Again and again I must realize that I will never catch up with the endless amount of creativity that is out there…these amazing people who have lived before us, live in our lifetime that have the spark of insight…and that if I am lucky enough to gather them into the library of my own life and experience they are what makes me a better, creative, open person. They are what gives meaning to my life. Yes, I knew nothing about Eugene O’Neill. But now I do. And now I want to read and see his plays. This series on PBS, American Experience, has managed to spark my interest into understanding what makes this man immortal and wanting to learn from him.
Never ever will I feel like I know enough. I know there is still an endless array of texts, biographies, plays, movies, songs that are waiting to be discovered by me. Waiting for me adopt them into my consciousness.
For today, I give my own little tribute to Eugene O’Neill and I want to share this part from the end of the documentary. Here is the transcript copied from the website:
Narrator: In the climactic fourth act of Long Day’s Journey Into Night, in one of the most beautiful and quietly moving passages O’Neill ever wrote, Edmund struggles to put into words the ephemeral sense of connection with something larger that had sometimes come over him while at sea.
Performance, Robert Sean Leonard (Edmund): I was on The Squarehead, square rigger, bound for Buenos Aires. Full moon in the Trades. The old hooker driving fourteen knots. I lay on the bowsprit, facing astern, the water foaming into spume under me, the masts with every sail white in the moonlight, towering high above me. I became drunk with the beauty and singing rhythm of it, and for a moment I lost myself, actually lost my life. I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky! I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to life itself! To God, if you want to put it that way. And several other times in my life, when I was swimming far out, or lying alone on a beach, I have had the same experience, became the sun, the hot sand, green seaweed anchored to a rock, swaying in the tide. Like a saint’s vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see, and seeing the secret, you are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on towards nowhere for no good reason. It was a great mistake, my being born a man, I would have been much more successful as a sea gull or a fish. As it is, I will always be a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want and is not really wanted, who can never belong, who must always be a little in love with death.
Robert Brustein: Well, there’s that beautiful moment in Long Day’s Journey when Edmund begins to reflect on the time when he was at sea, and he found God, or what he thought was God in the quiet and the silence and the coming together of all the elements. And his father sits and wonders at this and says, “There’s a touch of the poet in you.” And he says, “No, I’m not a poet. I don’t even have the makings.”
Performance, Robert Sean Leonard (Edmund): No…I couldn’t touch what I tried to tell you just now. I just stammered. That’s the best I’ll ever do. Well, it will be faithful realism at least. Stammering is the native eloquence of us fog people.
Robert Brustein: It is so painfully honest in the way that O’Neill begins to admit his own defects as a writer, recognizes that he’s not eloquent, that he doesn’t have the gift of the poet, he only has “the makings,” as he says. In recognizing that, O’Neill becomes a real poet at last, and not a stutterer, not a stammerer as he says he is in that play. He begins to soar and it’s impossible to see that play without being profoundly moved by it and also moved by the eloquence of it.
Sunday at the Renegade Fair ~ Part 1 July 14, 2008
Yesterday was one of these very spontaneous days. At first I spent the morning writing at Cafe Trieste. Then I started goal-lessly driving up and down Union Street when I suddenly remembered that there was some fair happening at Fort Mason Center: The Renegade Fair. I almost didn’t go (just because I was getting hungry, tired and lazy) but then something pushed me. Pretty much a voice nagging: what else are ya gonna do today?
So I went there. And I walked in and was very pleasantly surprised. My first impression was: wow! look at all these young, hip, good looking, cool, creative people! It’s not like I live under a rock in the middle of nowhere (proud to say I’ve lived in SF for 17 years) but I guess I haven’t seen that many interesting people in one place in a long time.
At first I walked up and down the rows of booths once. Got an overview. Knew I probably wouldn’t buy anything because, well, just because. Then I took my second round and decided to take photos of all the booths that I liked. There were a LOT of really cool things but I couldn’t take photos of everything. So I took photos of those booths that really caught my attention for different reasons. I left this place feeling really happy and proud of these young people who took that step and took a risk. Yes, it is a risk to not only dedicate yourself to create something that comes from your heart, but also to take the extra step and turn it into your business. You have to organize yourself: create the work, present it, market it, give it a price tag, go around the country to participate in such events…all that in the hope that some person will come to your booth and say: wow! love your stuff! and then purchase something. Yes, these people LOVE what they do…but they have to make a living…and that is the risk they take. Congratulations to all of you!
www.renegadecraft.com
Here they are (click on the picture for a larger view):
www.BookJournals.com
Jacob Deatherage ~ Ex Libris Anonymous ~ sells really interesting journals made from recycled books. When I asked him if I could take a few photos of him and his work, he told me to take one as a gift for putting him on my blog. I’m so not the kind of person that take advantage of such things and I almost declined his offer…but then I thought he would not have offered had he not meant it. I chose a book called “The Conquest of Mind” by Sri Swami Siwananda. It was only when I got home and opened the book that I noticed what these books were all about. They were not only the cover, but also the inside had the first pages of the Introduction, blank pages (journal, remember?), Chapter 29 in the middle of the book, more blank pages, and then what I believe must be the last chapter of the book at the end. Even with some underlinings. Of course I’m glad I chose this book because of its content. But what a clever idea, Jacob! A great gift for yourself or someone else. Check out his website: www.BookJournals.com
www.bookjournals.com
Thank you Jacob!
These two girls, Kelsey Arndt and Heather Daam were adorable. I loved their creations made of all different kinds of wood ~ Necklaces, earrings, buttons, etc…very creative and unique! Check out their website at www.tweethings.ca
www.tweethings.ca
When I got to the booth of this couple, I was immediately attracted to cute simplicity of their designs. I have a weakness for wood, so when I saw these adorable little rings with green trees on them, and then when I saw the price, I just had to get one. I also got a keychain. Very happy with both. Please check out their website at www.timberhandmade.com
Timberhandmade.com
There was something simply magnetic about this booth. Turns out that this artisan, Donovan Hicks not only makes jewelry but is also a massage therapist and yoga instructor. Oh yes! I definitely got that vibe from him. When I asked him if I could take a photo of him and his booth he smiled and said: I’m shy. Check out his work at his etsy shop at www.monkeymeditates.etsy.com
www.monkeymeditates.etsy.com
Alicia Hanson and Brad Johnson create jewelry using car parts. Really unique. They had a pretty large display of their work and as you can see from their photo, they use one of those huge red toolboxes to display their work. I also love the way their necklaces were hanging on copper sheets. When I asked Brad if I could take a photo of his work, he made sure to have his partner (and wife, i think) come over to be in the photo. Really unique stuff! Check out their website at www.hioctanejewelry.com
www.hioctanejewelry.com
www.hioctanejewelry.com
I don’t want to put all of the photos I took on one post. So I will post again in the next days. There were more booths that caught my attention. Check back again in the next days…
Bridging the Tourist/Artist Gap — Your Suggestions Wanted April 14, 2008
The following is written by Eric Maisel, author and creativity coach, who lives in San Francisco. I have read his book “A Writer’s San Francisco” and have the good intention to read more of his books when I get through the endless other books that I plan to read and finish reading.
I have subscribed to his newsletter and will be contributing to a blog he is creating called ” A Purpose-Centered Life”. In yesterday’s newsletter, he asks his readers to give him suggestions about a topic he is thinking about, writing about and will be speaking about at conferences. The topic is very interesting to me and I intend to put my thinking cap on and see what I can come up with. In the meantime, I thought it would be good to share this with all you creative types, artists and well, tourists too (which we all are, usually at least once a year). I think the idea of bridging that gap is a good one. Living in a very creative city like San Francisco and having worked with tourists for years, i love the idea of finding a way to narrow the divide between local artists and tourists / visitors.
So, read the following text and if you have any comments, you can either put them here (and with your permission I can forward them on to Eric Maisel), or you can email him directly at ericmaisel@hotmail.com
Hello, everybody:
At the end of this newsletter I’ll be asking for your suggestions. I hope that you’ll consider my questions and send along your thoughts. I think that every creative person has a stake in the subject I’m chatting about today: it relates to the rent you pay for your apartment and your studio and your ability to pay that rent, the relationships you fashion with your audience, your ability to create meaningful experiences that help reduce your sense of separation and alienation from the mass culture, and other issues having to do with the way we are each embedded in specific cultures and live in specific places.
I’ve been learning a new language as I immerse myself in the areas of “creative tourism” and “creative cities,” in preparation for a plenary talk I’ll be delivering at the Santa Fe International Conference on Creative Tourism, which runs from September 28 to October 2. (I’ll also be giving a “Creativity for Life” chat at the conference). Although the website for the conference isn’t up yet, you can learn more about the conference and its sponsorship HERE
I’ve long been interested in the dynamic relationships between place and the creative life and I’ve described some of these dynamics in essays like “Privilege and the Place Vendome” and “Demographics” in my books A Writer’s Paris and A Writer’s San Francisco. What, for example, if you find yourself living in a flag-waving, church-on-every- corner, shop-at-Walmart town that is indifferent to the creative spirit or actively antagonistic to it? What if you happen to reside in a large city where the concentration of wealth produces cultural institutions like museums and symphonies but, because of these same capitalist forces, generates rents that you can’t afford and jobs that only support mega-commerce and mega-tourism? You can be an investment banker or a waiter there, but can you be an artist? These realities matter, psychologically and practically, in the lives of creative folk.
One of these dynamic (and difficult) relationships is the relationship between the tourist, who may be attracted to a place because of its cultural reputation, and the artist who lives in that place (or very near that place, as the rents in-town are probably prohibitive) and creates the culture. The artist, for his part, likely feels scorn for the tourist who travels in what Erik Cohen has dubbed an “environmental bubble” and who eats well, buys souvenirs, cranes his neck, and displays no real feeling for the culture around him. The tourist avoids the artist; the artist avoids the tourist (except when, as part of a sales interaction, he must smile and nod and agree that the customer is right); and the distance between the two is carefully maintained on each side.
In the tourism industry, the places where some of these questions are beginning to be addressed (or ought to be addressed) are in the areas of “cultural tourism” and “creative tourism.” Cultural tourism is an umbrella idea that includes all of the following: attracting visitors to a place because of “grand” cultural attractions like famous art museums or symphony orchestras; attracting visitors because of a place’s “cultural mosaic” of art galleries or live music venues; or attracting visitors with the lure of experiencing a particular “culture,” whether it’s “natives in native dress” or the “Italian culture” of an old-line Italian neighborhood with its delis and cafés.
Creative tourism, by contrast, is described in a Wickopedia entry as follows: “Creative tourism has existed as a form of cultural tourism since the early beginnings of tourism itself. More recently, creative tourism has been given its own name by Crispin Raymond and Greg Richards. They have defined ‘creative tourism’ as tourism related to the active participation of travelers in the culture of the host community, through interactive workshops and informal learning experiences. Meanwhile, the concept of creative tourism has been picked up by high-profile organizations such as UNESCO, who through the Creative Cities Network have endorsed creative tourism as an engaged, authentic experience that promotes an active understanding of the specific cultural features of a place.”
To put it simply, when you visit a gallery, you are a cultural tourist; when you take a workshop from the artist himself or herself, you are a creative tourist. I think that it would be wonderful if we moved this last idea from its narrow version of the occasional tourist taking the occasional local workshop to the broader idea of how tourists can be encouraged to change their internal story about why they are traveling, helping them to add “meaning” to the usual litany of restaurants, shopping, and golf; and how artists can be encouraged to change their internal story about the necessity of keeping tourists at arm’s length. I am thinking that it might be useful to call this rewriting of the internal stories of tourists, artists, and locals “narrative tourism”: the effort to change the relationship between visitor and local (including local artist) by helping all concerned rewrite their internal stories about what travel means.
The typical artist forms no particular connection with the tourists who visit his or her city and the typical tourist forms no connection with the artists who live in the city he or she visits. The main reasons for this are three-fold: the “mass tourist” (usually divided into the categories of “individual mass tourist,” the tourist who makes his or her own arrangements, and the “organized mass tourist,” who takes a packaged tour) is not fundamentally interested in creativity and culture; the artist has no models or instructions about how to engage with tourists in meaningful ways (on in any way); and tourism stakeholders (city, state and national governments with their convention bureaus, visitors bureaus, and arts commissions, international agencies like UNESCO, non-profit tourism research organizations, hotel chains and restaurant chains, etc.) spend their time, energy, and money elsewhere.
Bridging the gap (or gulf) between local artist and out-of-town visitor necessarily makes a place more creative, more human, and more humane for tourist, artist, and resident alike. It also reduces the tension between local residents who feel “on display” and tourists who descend to “use the facilities.” When tourists visit a museum, they do nothing to bridge this gap; when, by contrast, they go out of their way to attend a lecture at a local Laundromat or watch a filmmaker’s movie projected onto a schoolyard wall, as they can do in my San Francisco neighborhood of Bernal Heights, both they and the artists involved are enriched.
Tourists and artists alike need considerable help in bridging this gap. A local writer, actor, painter, musician or craftsperson is unlikely to consider inviting tourists to join her in some interactive experience; by the same token, tourists are unlikely to seek out such opportunities even if they existed. Artists need help in conceptualizing such possibilities and help in enacting them; tourists need help in creating the inner narrative that permits them to feel comfortable “doing something creative”, “mingling with artists”, and moving their vacation in more existential, experimental, and experiential directions.
The realities of both constituencies— the tourist arriving as consumer and observer, looking mainly for diversion and recreation, the artist marginalized and struggling, isolated in his own community—militate against this gap narrowing. One of the great opportunities of the creative tourism movement is to promote strategies that change this dynamic and bridge this gap, producing more meaningful experiences for visitors, new social and marketing opportunities for artists, and a more genuinely creative place for everyone. I have certain strategies in mind that might help in bridging this gap and I want to present them to you over the next few weeks. But first I would love to hear from you.
1. What, in your opinion, might help bridge the tourist/artist gap? What are your thoughts?
2. What have others tried to bridge this gap? Do you have any stories?
3. Have you tried to personally to bridge this gap? If so, what were the results and what did you learn?
I look forward to your thoughts. Please send them along to me at ericmaisel@hotmail. com
Have an excellent Sunday!
Best,
Eric
ericmaisel@hotmail. com
ericmaisel@sbcgloba l.net
