Star Story: A visual tale about encountering difference

Earthbound

Scattered

Finding

Gathering

Growing

Encounter

Interaction

Sharing

Interpreting

Reacting

\

Shattering

Healing

Inquiring

Imagining

Reframing

Reflection Questions

Here are some questions you might consider reflecting on. I’d love to hear any answers you’d like to share in the comments below.

• Have you ever felt separated from your real people?
• How have you found the people you love?
• What are your favorite things to do?
• What benefits from your love?
• How do you greet differences?
• When does it feel safe to share what is in your heart?
• Who do you share your heart dreams with?
• What moves you to respond quickly?
• What do you do when you feel deeply hurt?
• What helps to soothe your heart when it feels broken?
• Who helps you feel whole again?
• What do you do when you have accidentally hurt someone?
• How do you start to heal a rift with the other?
• What gives you hope that there is another way?

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Continuing to tweet stories

I’m interested in figuring out how to use social media and images to inspire conversations. I know how to use the images face to face, but I’m not sure the best way to do it online. So I am experimenting, playing with Facebook, Twitter, and my online gallery.

I learned a lot last week about tweeting links to story panels. Twice a day I would post a panel on Facebook, and put out a tweet about it. The story was about the Head & Heart, and you can see the images in this slideshow. The story itself was written into the captions on the gallery.

What I learned

I didn’t put enough words in my tweets to give people enough information about what I was doing, so they found it hard to follow. I found it hard to get a sense of what it looked like from the receiving end. Fortunately, I have followers who were willing to help me craft a better approach for another story this week. This time I have a tweet formula, which will number the parts of the story, and ask reflection questions.

My artwork is used to inspire insight and conversations. My goal is to figure out if it is possible to do the same using social media. Still not sure, but I’m certainly going to try. I hope you will help me figure out the best options.

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Tweeting Stories

I’m working on a new product line called Exploring My Options. It’s a system that will include a deck of images, workbooks and worksheets to explore a whole range of topics. Part of what I am exploring is how to bring it to market in new ways, and without printing a lot of inventory. I’m exploring licensing, digital downloads, video and print on demand.

One piece I am playing with are stories that introduce the ideas in a course. I have been painting images for this, that will also become some kind of storytelling deck. Archetypal themes, with the ability to not only explore your relationship to that story, but also offer the opportunity to rewrite it.

Right now, the images are available as prints or digital downloads for web use. If you want to see purchase options, use the add to cart button on the gallery page. It doesn’t really add anything to a cart, it shows you the options in case you are interested. Not my favorite feature of this gallery, but the prints they produce are beautiful, so I am compromising.

Heart Story

I started exploring unfolding these pictorial stories by tweeting and using my Facebook status. I did the first one last week, one panel a day. Some of the panels were in last weeks slideshow, since it started out with my exploring Valentines Day as an idea. Here is the whole thing.

Next up: The Head and the Heart

This week I’m doing a story about the Head and the Heart. I will tweet panels and post them to my Facebook page, every morning and afternoon PST. This time there is a word story too. My hope is you will follow along, and let me know what its like to have a story unfold like this. It’s all an experiment. I also invite you to tell your version of the story in the comments on the gallery pages.

If you aren’t on twitter or Facebook, you can follow along on the story page in the gallery.

If you have other ideas about how to use social media to share art, I would love to hear them . Just leave a comment below. Suggestions for how to make this idea work better are also welcome.

This is part of my commitment to Creative Every Day 2010.

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John, Yoko, peace and images

Garr Reynolds over at Presentation Zen reminded me that today is the twenty seventh anniversary of John Lennon’s death. Garr was not very far from where I am now in Oregon when he heard, I was in my third floor studio at Rhode Island School of Design. I remember the images I was working on at the time, it was one of those senseless moments where I wonder how the world can be so insane. My roommates came home a short time later and I couldn’t even tell them. It was like it didn’t make enough sense to repeat, my brain couldn’t quite comprehend how or why it happened.

John and Yoko were regular topics of conversation at art school. No discussion of conceptual art occurred without someone talking about Yoko, and discussions of performance art always contained mention of John and Yoko’s work together. It wasn’t just the art, the talk was also around maintaining identity as an artist independent of collaborators, who takes the spotlight and why, and a myriad of other aspects of being an artist in the public eye. We listened to their music, and paid attention to what they did. We noticed they had made the choice to step back and raise their child, to put Sean at the center of their world.

I’ve noticed the tributes Yoko has paid to John at the anniversaries of his death. Marveled at her ability to create in the face of such pain. So when Garr linked to her latest, I clicked over right away. Perhaps I should have paid a bit more attention to his comments:

The letter and the video (especially the Happy Christmas music video at the end) are evocative, and for many provocative perhaps. But you can not read the letter and watch the video presentation and not feel something. First I read the letter from Yoko to John. It is very simple and very beautiful. It speaks to the loss all of us have felt, (feel, or will feel) when we lose the person most important to us. For many, you’ll feel something quite profound. Read the letter, then watch the video; you will surely feel something.

I watched the video and read the letter late, right before I was going to bed. I didn’t sleep much, and still can’t get the song and the images out of my head. I would describe it as searing. Almost ten hours later, I can still feel a physical clutching around my heart. It is an incredibly powerful message, and worth seeing. But probably not right before you need to do something else. You can get there by clicking the image below.

This is a great example of how the visual and the verbal can combine to tell a story. When I first started writing this post, I thought I would analyze how that was done, and talk about the power of image. I’ve erased my words numerous times. They seem to silly, detached, and trite compared to the incredible piece of work Yoko has created. So, I’m going to leave it be. Go, watch it. Then go to Presentation Zen and watch the other videos Garr has found. Read the story he posted. I’ll talk about the images with less important images as examples. Just experience these.

Inspirational power of stories

I am so blessed. I get to work with the VisualsSpeak tools all the time. The absolute best part of it is hearing the stories. Have people pick photographs, and they respond with amazing stories. I get to laugh and play with people in the most incredible ways through the images. Shed an occasional tear with a few. But I never tire of it. Each session teaches me so much about how incredible people are.

Here are two stories which have touched me. Not from VisualsSpeak this time, but from two blogging colleagues. Both of them have really enhanced the power of the stories they are telling with the photographs they included. You’ll have to visit their blogs to see them, but it will be worth it.

The first is from one of the blogging challenge participants. We have been working to improve our blogs. The Indian Blogger shares a story of Dashrath Manjhi who moved a mountain, literally. You have to see what he did.

The second one is from Patti Digh. She is a colleague who teaches experiential learning techniques, particularly as they pertain to diversity through The Circle Project. I have had the pleasure of taking classes Patti teaches, and they are fantastic. Her blog is one of my favorites, and she is probably the main reason I am blogging today. She has inspired me over and over and her blog is full of stories. One of my favorite of her stories is about a man she met on a plane.

Storytelling has been used to teach since the dawn of time. Do you have any favorites to share?