I went to Wordcamp Portland this past weekend. My favorite session was with Michelle Anderson on Using the Apture Plugin to Tell Interactive Stories.

The Miracle in July is her semi-autobiographical genre bending interactive story. I’m fascinated on multiple fronts. On the technical side, the Apture plugin for WordPress offers all sorts of exciting possibilities for embedding media into a blog. On the creative side, I’m fascinated by Michelle’s approach to her project.
I imagine most people who embed media are doing it to enrich news type of content. Michelle is doing it to deepen engagement with story. She’s  an engaging writer already, then she adds music clips, photos, videos, and maps to offer the reader additional insights into what she’s thinking. They don’t interrupt the flow of the text since they are just small icons that appear inline when there is something else to experience. It’s very different than reading with illustrations.

She’s also built the story over time. Sharing drafts and building interaction with her readers through social media. The story is intense, gutsy. Her words paint vivid images and sounds. It becomes all the more alive with the inter dispersed media. Almost dimensional.

The tension between the visual and verbal

So much of my work emerges out of the space between the visual and verbal. I haven’t been able to translate it into the online space. Or express, or explain, or inspire the kind of engagement I can when face to face. I don’t know if I can flip the engagement created by the Apture technology to be lead by the visual. Not sure if it can assist in creating the tension that emerges when you bounce between the visual and verbal by shuffling through prints and then telling the story they inspire. Or perhaps it’s something else. Another way to tell the painted stories I have experimented with? Just seems like there should be some really creative applications. Ideas?

I like to hear your comments and stay in touch.
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Earthbound

A long time ago, there was a group of stars that came to the Earth

Scattered

They were distributed all over the planet in different areas. Their goal was to find each other.

Finding

Slowly but surely they did find each other and moved into a community together where they were so very happy.

Gathering

One of the things they loved more than anything was growing flowers, and they would gather together and put all their energy into creating amazing gardens.

Growing

The flowers were beautiful and flourished in all this love.

Encounter

One day a moon showed up outside the door and one brave star thought, hmm I wonder what this is about.

Interaction

So the star went out and talked to the moon and started to like this moon and thought, maybe I'll share something that is really important to me.

Sharing

So the star showed the moon one of the flowers saying, "This is my beautiful flower, see how much energy and attention I have put into it."

Interpreting

And the moon said, "Wow, awesome I love flowers." and ripped it from its roots because flowers go in vases inside your home.

Reacting

The star was so upset that it ran right back into the house leaving the moon outside with the flower, feeling really confused.

\

Shattering

The star felt shattered, like the whole essence of itself had just been violated. It just didn't know what to do.

Healing

But the other stars did, because they knew that focusing their energy on this shattered star would bring love back to the star and enable it to start healing.

Inquiring

The moons came around wondering what had happened, wondering why the star went inside, and why they were keeping them out and why their hearts looked so shattered

Imagining

A few brave souls decided to think about was there another way? Was there another option; was there another way to look at this?

Reframing

Is there a way to take the stars reality and merge it with the moons?

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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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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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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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.