What’s Your Project?

I put together twenty (plus) packages with various collage items with these instructions:

An art challenge — make a mixed media collage using at least part of each of these. Use some kind of paint. Add whatever you wish. Scan/photograph your collage and email to me. :)

Then I sent them to random people I knew through flickr and blogs. I will compile all of the photographs in an album on flickr.

Update: See the album Joleen created here.

Joleen Thiessen
California USA
love, joleen

Take a sample of every body of water you visit. Put them in little
glass bottles and label them with the day and place. It could be an
ocean or a puddle — what matters is that that unique collection of
pollution, purity, bacteria, algae, and such is a little time capsule
back to that moment in time. Sometimes, if there is no water
available, run a tap and label that bottle “so-and-so’s tap”. I
recently found an old bottle of mine labeled “Grandmum’s house” — from
before she moved in with my aunt, from before she died… This is all I
have of her house and I now keep it next to my samples from Loch Ness and
the Atlantic Ocean.

Emily Wing
New York, NY

I’ve always loved fortune cookies. Whenever I eat at
Chinese restaurants, I always look forward to the
cookies at the end of the meal. I always insist on
reading the fortunes of people I shared the meal with,
and we try to make some sense out of the tiny strip of
paper.

In my home I will keep fortune cookies in a huge jar
by the door (you can buy them in Asian groceries!),
and offer one to every person who visits me in my home
(yes, even the cable guy). I’ll have them write their
names on the strip of paper, perhaps with a note about
the fortune’s relevance, then make a collage out of it
after a year. It’ll give you and your visitor a good
laugh on his way out, and at the end of the year, you
might just be amazed at how many people have gone into
your front door.

Diwata Bose
Tustin, CA

I live in an old neighborhood, on the east side of town, with a not so perfect perception or image. In the past, our area had high crime, lots of drugs and low income. The city has been working on a revitalization project for our neighborhood, including heritage designation. We will have the largest heritage designated neighborhood in all of Ontario. The image is starting a slow, slow climb upward. The old homes have such fabulous character and nearly 70% still have original existing architectural features. This is a huge number.

A group of neighborhood people that are avid gardeners and community minded individuals got together and formed a garden club. Several of our group started guerrilla gardening! What fun we had! The instigator, who calls herself Captain Orchid, and her husband, called us all together one early spring evening, on a Friday, meeting at dusk. We were told to bring shovels, dirt and seeds… The plot thickens. All of those attending our mystery random acts of gardening evenings throughout the summer had gardening names. I am Corporal Hollyhock. Our local paper did an article on the mysterious rise of plant content.

This group of spirited individuals proceeded to plant seeds along an abandoned boulevard beside the railway tracks bordering our neighborhood. We had such fun, the following weeks we all looked forward to our Friday night secretive outings. One week we planted a small plant on the boulevards of a dozen homes in the area, with a stake and sign saying they had been tagged by the Guerrilla Gardeners of the Old East Village. Another Friday we strung clay pots with geraniums on hydro poles along a one-way street that gets high traffic, and here we met another like-minded citizen that promised to water the potted poles. They lasted about 8 days before all went missing, hopefully to a home that had no flowers! Another evening we walked a bit further east, and again tied potted flowers to hydro poles. This street had a very, very bad reputation for drugs, illegal activities and a very, very negative image. The home owners there took several of the pots in at night and they lasted nearly two weeks!

We continued throughout the summer doing our random acts of gardening and received more recognition for these secret missions than we did for our honest gardening adventures at the local library cleanup and the downtown section!

The residents of our neighborhood were so grateful. We started seeing boulevard plantings, in various spots, and the gossip in the “hood”: everyone wanted to know who was tagging these hits with the words “You have been tagged by the Guerrilla Gardeners of the Old East Village, please enjoy your whatever plant, and the random act of gardening.”

This summer we have several more events planned, always under the cover of darkness, always Friday evenings and always much anticipated!

Corporal Hollyhock
London, Ontario Canada

For Christmas I mailed disposable cameras out to all my friends, with
the instructions to take fun photos, alter the camera — whatever they
were inspired to do to the camera or choose as subjects. Then I
requested that when they developed the film, to choose to have the
images scanned onto a cd and mail that cd back to me.

I plan to post the
images on my Flickr site and send out an email with a link to a slideshow of their
submissions to all the people participating. We will vote for our favorite
photos for each set submitted. At the end of the project, I will burn
the faves onto a disk and send to those who participated.

Jennifer L. Basuel
Kansas City, MO

Write the story of your life in 400 words. (Or fold a sheet of paper in half, and write the story of your life on it.) When you are done, write the story of your life in 400 words again — but don’t repeat a single detail. The first time, write about all the houses you ever lived in. Then write about all the jobs you ever had. All the people you kissed. What you wanted, when. Then write about the people you knew and how they influenced you. Write about the clothes you’ve worn. The foods you’ve eaten. The things you believed. The times you changed your mind. Embarrassments. Triumphs. Write about the forces of history that have shaped you: what was going on in the world when you were born, or the first story on the news that you remember? Write about the way you looked or the way that you thought you looked. How many different people lurk inside the truth of you?

Katherine Sharpe
Ithaca, NY
400 Words

The “We Love You Because…” Journal: First, I bought a nice blank journal, the artsy kind with thick handmade-looking paper, bound in Nepal or somewhere. It had a black binding, and its cover and pages looked like oatmeal would look if you could dry out oatmeal and flatten it into paper. As I recall, I bought the book in an art-supply store in Chelsea when I was visiting Manhattan. The books were on sale. Second, when I got home, I used a nice black-ink pen to write, on the cover, “We.” Then my daughter wrote, in careful lettering, “Love.” My son wrote, “You.” And then I wrote, “Because…” Third, the kids and I took turns writing in the journal, finishing that sentence, devoting one reason per page. For example, my daughter wrote, “You make the bestest cookies in the whole entire world.” On another page, I wrote, “You like to buy the latest hi-tech cleaning supplies.” And on another page, my son wrote, “You look weird when you wear a mud mask.” By writing only one reason per page and taking turns, we easily filled up the book in a week or two. We took our time, wrote carefully, and, to capture inspiration, kept the book handy near the breakfast table, kitchen counter, or Playstation 2. Fourth, we gave the journal to my wife the night before she left to start her new job in another state. (We would follow in a month.) We told her not to read it until she got to the new apartment. Fifth, she told us she kept it by her bed and read it every night.

David Barringer
Davidson, NC
davidbarringer.com

The next time you go on vacation, don’t bring a camera. This sounds counterintuitive but think about all the memories you have of places, times, and events that actually come from photos and not actual memories. Rather than taking photos to remember your holiday, collect tidbits from your days and nights out: the coaster that sat under your beer while you watched people hurry down a Parisian street, a wooden bookmark bought from a girl hawking her wares at a Mexican market, the beautifully printed ticket stub from the Uffizi. Put these items in a box when you get home. They will help you remember your vacation in a different light than through photographs in an album.

Ada Chu
Brooklyn, NY

Make a shadow box for your friend, mate, or other loved one. You can
buy shadow box frames at places like Ikea pretty cheaply. Then
construct a framed sculpture for your subject. The kicker is you should
go to their house or in their room and take small items that reflect
their character or their relationship to you. Maybe it’s a key or a
picture or their favorite pen. Put the items together in the box with
some objects or photos of your own. Voilà. Stolen Shadow Box.

Gordon K. Hurd
San Francisco, CA