You are the best person to share YOUR story, so try as much as possible to work from what you know, through YOUR vision, in and from those places that make you uniquely YOU. As you turn the pages of your book (or maybe it’s poetry, a report, a calendar?), you may find that what is uniquely YOU is shared experience. You and I? We are not so different after all… we are human, we are US, and your story becomes OUR story.
Still confused about what you’re doing here? Read this…
Your turn to DRAW!
- Need a simple creative “kick starter”? A recycled pickle jar can be useful to store slips of paper for times when you’re creatively stuck or looking for a quick warm-up at the beginning of the studio day. The idea is to pick 2 or 3 of the slips, and then combine the words or concept somehow as anchor points in a drawing, a piece of writing, or even as objects for a photo “scavenger” hunt when you’re out and about. For me, sometimes the ideas generated turn into a resolved artworks, but mostly they just get me going for the day. The point is, you and I would come up with something COMPLETELY different from the same set of words, e.g., here, “something to eat” or “shiny necessary objects”. Hmmmm! Let me think about that for a bit…
- In a similar vein, one year for Christmas, my brother gave me a book called “642 Things to Draw” (2010) by Nicola Ries Taggart filled with drawing prompts and each with a bit of blank space to draw in. Every now and then, when I’m feeling restless and need an “anchor” (or else I’d be spinning around in my head all day, accomplishing very little to nothing), I’ll crack this book and challenge myself to combine several words on a page in a single, resolved drawing. What would your drawing of “crayon, robot, tube sock” look like? How about “ottoman, string quartet, bottle openers, fire escape”? Would they be separate ideas or could you combine any of the words? It’s fun, experimental, and often helps pin down a few of the thoughts whirling around in my mind so I can concentrate better on more difficult work I’d planned for the day.
Maybe this Ransom Note gives you a different idea? Let me know!
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Not only does your creativity need YOU, but here’s a surprise, the world needs your creativity, too! By sharing your response to a Ransom Note, we are building a community who will enjoy, be inspired by, and learn from each other. Who knows, maybe some of us will “find our tribe” or even make the world that tiny bit more pleasant to be in than it was 15 minutes ago!
Other ways to TELL (y)OUR STORY
- Marina Abramovic is a master of telling our human story through her performance art, and using her own body as medium. In “The Artist is Present” at MoMA in 2010, the “performance” starts with Abramovic sitting at a table opposite an empty chair. Day by day for nearly three months, she locked gaze with 1,000 people whom she’d never met, “…many of whom were moved to tears.” Many visitors reported a feeling of “transformation” or talked of being “uplifted”, “present” in this experience that was more about the mind and being present with another person than it was about the physical body.
Marina Abramovic (left) engages with a person, in ‘The Artist is Present’, 2010, at MoMo, New York. Image courtesy http://www.moma.org “Nobody could imagine…that anybody would take time to sit and just engage in mutual gaze with me,” Abramović explained. In fact, the chair was always occupied, and there were continuous lines of people waiting to sit in it. “It was [a] complete surprise…this enormous need of humans to actually have contact.”
What other artists or techniques can you think of? Let me know!
Beware of Artists 