Background stories

One of my friends posted this link on Facebook this morning. It's incredible! Shea Hembrey, a contemporary artist from Arkansas unsatisfied with the quality of art work at biennial art shows, decided to host his own show. But after having trouble finding suitable artists to include in his show, Hembrey decided to make all the art pieces himself. He invented 100 artists, complete with individual personas and art projects, and created nearly 400 artworks in two years! His collection premiered at the TED 2011 conference and if you've got time to watch the whole 16-minute video, I'd recommend it. It's quite amusing, especially near the end when he goes through his alter-egos at rapid-pace.

Those of you who were in Creative Writing and Advanced Creative Writing classes with me will remember Mr. Lale often telling us that spending time doing background writing, thinking and researching about the characters and settings in our stories, was a valuable asset to our actual drafts. After reading this article and watching the TED video, I can see why. I shall endeavour to do more of this type of background writing in the future. I only wish I had one-tenth of Hembrey's creativity...

Bedrooms show who we are

A few days ago one of my friends posted this link on Facebook. I absolutely LOVE the idea! James Mollison, a documentary photographer born in Kenya who grew up in England, wanted to represent needy children around the world in a new, unique way for a children's charity project. "When he visualized his own childhood, he realized that his bedroom said a lot about what sort of life he led. So he set out to find others." What better way to learn about children and how they are growing up than to find out about their homes and, specifically, their bedrooms? Mollison "posed his young subjects -- more than 200 of them -- against blank white backgrounds for their portraits, leaving their bedrooms to do the talking." I have to admit, I'm kind of jealous that someone else had this idea first... Now what other creative and interesting photojournalism projects are out there for me to undertake?? Guess I'll just have to keep my brain turned on and my thinking cap fastened, eh? Oh and, Mollison's new book, "Where Children Sleep," that stemmed from the project, is totally going on my Amazon Wish List!

Bulletin boards

Maybe my creativity grows when I have a bulletin board. One day when I was at Jonathan and Tim's apartment near the end of last semester I stole two square pieces of Tim's corkboard and hung them above my desk. Since then I've been pinning random things to the corkboard. At the moment there are: several lists (things to do, movies to watch - as if I'll actually get the time to watch any), a couple IOU post-its, pictures of my family and friends, a yet-unused Canucks bumper sticker, the SJ&C faculty picture/Christmas card, a cut-out snowflake that a co-worker made for each person working at the Accent office one night in December, mine and Jonathan's read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year schedule, a blank SM application form (to remind Bryn to fill out the online form), a fortune cookie fortune that says I will soon begin a new line of work (I saved it because I'm hoping it's prophetic once May rolls around), and a fake parking ticket that Jonathan left on my windshield last October. I feel like those two packed squares of corkboard give me more ideas, even when the subject I'm writing about has nothing to do with anything pinned on there. Now I'm longing for a real bulletin board. If I had one I would be able to move my list-of-books-to-buy and my list-of-food-items-to-make from the fridge to the bulletin board. And just imagine how much more creative I could be if I filled up one of those!