ever since the fabulous stacey childs of disco underworld fame wrote "writing is the new praying," to me in an email, i began to spread it through the blogosphere like a sort of life philosophy. the phrase, which resonates with so many of us, seemed to be begging to have a project attached to it. and somehow, behind the scenes (in this case, via email) - which is where so much of the good stuff goes on - an idea was born. it was inspired a little bit by the 1000 journals project, somewhat by this, a titch by a project at the brooklyn library, but mostly it was inspired by the notion that writing is the new praying. we got together with B from cuttings on a blog and the soujournal project was born.
the idea is this. we would each start a journal - written/art/whatever - and then exchange them amongst ourselves and continue writing/working in them - sending them off once a month. it is wide open what we want to write and how we want to approach it. eventually, the plan is to open it up and people can "apply" to receive one of the journals and be part of it. in so doing, they'll start a new one and put it into circulation with the group. it was a given that there would be a blog where we would share all of this.
originally, it was to be just the three of us. but the strangest thing happened to me as i was working on mine during the week between christmas and new year's. it kept popping into my head that i should pass mine on to polly. i tried to shake the thought, but it kept coming back, so we decided we had to loop polly into the initial phase of the project. you just can't ignore a feeling that strong, so i'm certain that there's some reason that polly needs to be the one i pass my journal along to. thankfully, when she came to blog camp a couple of weeks ago, she agreed and didn't (at least outwardly) find it too strange that i had this strong feeling about this.
we have all made our initial pages and are at the stage of sending our journals to the others. we have created the soujournal blog and we'll be sharing our pages and our thoughts over there. we have lots of plans for this, but we will reveal those as the journey unfolds. i hope you'll check in and see what we're up to. here's my first page as a teaser. it's also up over on soujournal.
16 comments:
Ooooh how super!! I really like your first page, gorgeous.
Um, another blog? And yet you're job hunting...when are you going to get it that blogging IS your job!
Lovely work, and what a great idea x
I'm with Spud - kudo's and all but ANOTHER blog, how do you manage?
Lucky us though - thank you!
Another blog. I'm not surprised, you just can't help yourself. What did surprise me that it is a wordpress-blog!!!!
But I'm more than happy to read and look at your pages filled with prayers.
Yep you're a habitual blogger with a passion for projects. This looks great and what a fab idea. Bravo!!!
Best project ever... if I do say so myself! :)
what a WONDERFUL idea! If you every do open it up to applicants, let me know!
I agree. What a fun idea.
That is an amazing idea.
Although my $0.02 - writing has always been a form of prayer.
xoxo
Neat. Maybe this sounds cheesy, but it makes me think of the sisterhood of the traveling pants...which I've always liked.
S
It's a marvelous idea. I'm wondering about starting my own loop amongst my family and friends. I'm not sure. I think it would work better between like-minded people.
Very cool idea! Writing is a kind of prayer...photography, collage...these too are prayer for me.
LOVE the journal idea. You've got a great start!
xo
I love this idea. It reminds me of the friendship books we made and exchanged all over the world when I was a child. Pre-internet, I had penpals all over the place, Finland, Italy, Guinea, etc. and in our letters we included small "books" that were several decorative pieces of stationary stapled, folded or taped together, decorated with marker, stamps and stickers. Each person who received the book would put their name, address, and a little message, then send the book on to someone else. Whoever received the book last would send it back to the first person (creator of the book) who could then see where in the world her book had been travelling. One of these penpals, a lovely person from Finland that I started writing to in the 3rd grade, has since been over to the US to visit 4 or 5 times, and we continue to be friends even though we first started writing each other about 20 or 25 years ago.
So of course I think your journal idea is a great one, and sounds like it's going to be lots of fun. I look forward to seeing the blog updates as it travels around!
You really are talented. I love your first page. Very jealous.
this warms my heart.
xo
Wishing you much fun, inspiration, and luck for this great project. We're always on the look-out for such collaborations, and really love this one.
Post a Comment