One more NVoice shout out – Luke Closs had an OLPC with him and taught me a LOT, including how to balance one on your chin. Here I’m getting into it slowly by using my teeth to help. Later I balanced, but sitting on the ground so the fall would be shorter for the little green and white sweetie. I’m still a digital grasshopper, oh Master Luke!
Nancy and Luke Duelling on Flickr – Photo Sharing! by Lee LeFever
The challenge of parallel sessions is you have to miss something, particularly if you are playing a lead role in your own
session. Makes it hard to skip out. There were two sesssions I really wish I had not missed. One was Dave Olson‘s F*ck Stats, Make Art Dossier.
Apparently, Dave was on the same stream as our “Writing on Walls” session – tapping into our creativity. I’m glad the session was recorded and blogged. It was interesting to see that there were quite a few sessions that pinged on a central core of creativity.
I also missed Alan “cogdog” Levine’s preso on 50 Ways to Tell a Story. I’ve been following the evolution of this presentation since last summer and was looking forward to the “live” version, but I was deep in a conversation with Dave Pollard and one does not drop the chance for a great conversation. So Alan, know I was beaming you and I’ll look for Injenuity’s video. (And I’m glad, Alan, you caught Scott Leslie’s “Trackback Love“. Geek poetry!)
(Photo by Robert Scales )
I mentioned yesterday that I led a session on drawing at Northern Voice yesterday. I invited people to be fearless, to draw and to share their drawings. But I forgot how that can trigger deep things in us. My friend Julie Leung pointed me a blog post about an experience of a person in that session, and I am shaken. The blogger has no comments on her blog so I am going to try this. First here’s a link to the post. Read it if you care about people. (and context) NorthernVoice.
Dear Meg
Meg, Meg, Meg
I want to both apologize to you and to thank you. First, apologize because I made light of something important and, as I understand it from your blog post, difficult for you. Second, to thank you for your bravery and what you helped me learn. I feel absolutely torn that we did not get a chance to talk about this and I invite that opportunity if you’d like to.
I learned two very important things as I took my flying leap into this experiment – and one was the reinforcement of the power that drawing can unlock things within us. The second was I need to be more gentle and loving when I offer the invitation to unlock whatever it is we have locked within us.
I feel like I have abused you. I deeply apologize. And I thank you so much for blogging about it and allowing me to learn this.
Nancy
(I found an email and sent the above to Meg)
As I read Meg’s post, I recalled the day I unlocked my inner artist as an adult. I was attending a weekend-long introduction to painting workshop at a local community college. “Beginners welcome.” We explored black and white. We mixed colors from the three primary colors. We painted with blindfolds and, important for me, with our fingers.
There I was in an old shirt, fingers swirling with acrylic paint feeling the roughness of the primed canvas. Our teacher invited us to think about our lives. I can still recall how my arms and fingers started pulling on their own, dipping into more and more red paint. The angry colors flooded the canvas. I did not know how angry I was, how I was holding all that anger inside of me. I was a nice young mom. I had a great job but I was working for a hurt, damaged man who did all he could to hurt and damage us, especially the women who worked for him. I used to come home and in the shower, curse his name. I wrote his name on the bottom of my shoes. And here all this anger and even hate was coming out of my fingers, channeled through the paint.
On Sunday morning, we were invited to show our paintings and, god help me, talk about them. And there I was, like Meg, with my guts on the canvas and having to talk about it in front of all these people. I started crying. And all that anger that I felt, as a “good girl” came flooding out. Like a gashed artery.
All for a bit of paint, or a marker on a paper, and an invitation to express what is truly inside of us. From an ice cream, to our pain.
Meg, again, I both thank you and ask for your forgiveness.
Ohh, goody, Northern Voice is just over a month away, Feb 21 – 23. I’m excited. Here is what I’m doing from a scheduled perspective on the main day (Saturday.) Still cooking ideas for Friday’s Moose Camp. Dave are we still doing something with Improv? Oh, and don’t forget Thursday night’s party!
First I’m hosting a session at 10:45 on Saturday (up against Marc Canter – drat), “Why I slowed down blogging and started drawing on walls.” The gist? How can drawing, doodling and other visual practices make a difference in our blogging and in other parts of our lives? Blogging really helped me find my writing voice. Now, what is my visual voice? How can drawing, doodling and other visual practices make a difference in our blogging and in other parts of our lives? (Please bring paper, pens and such, but leave your inner censor at the door.)
Right after than Chris Lott foolishly asked me to sit in on his panel, The Blog is Dead! Long live bloggers. I have no idea what we are doing and that sounds fun to me.
Most of all, I’m looking forward to hanging out with folks, old friends and new. NorthernVoice always has this friendly vibe where I feel comfortable. I have the ability to act extroverted, but conferences usually trigger my inner introvert. So I appreciate the NV vibe and especially the people.
So, what will YOU be doing at Northernvoice 08?