Thursday, February 11, 2010

Friday Challenge!

My hope for the Friday Challenge is that it inspires creativity. That's it. Inspiration to create art, inspiration to live artfully, and inspiration to the curiosity which is the antidote to fear. When you take on a challenge you can post about the outcome here, if you like, or link to your blog, or be very private about it. You have the whole week to complete it or you can do it whenever it amuses. All fine!
Here is this week's Friday challenge:
Collage Work or Transiting Memes!
I have gathered these into three rough categories but feel free to do any one or all of them! Don't restrict yourself - for we are all wordsmiths, visual artists and householders...
Wordsmiths - Choose a page or two in a magazine or a newspaper. Read it and as you read it underline those words or phrases that resonate with you today. Once you've done that with no other tool than your intuition - go back and pluck out those phrases. Using nothing but the phrases and words create a poem. You can repeat phrases and words but not reorder them with the phrase. For instance, if you underlined the phrase "All for one, and one for all" you might repeat it as the refrain of your piece but you must not change it to "all one" or "for and". Get it? I hope so.
Visual Artists - (photographers, designers, painters and drawers, collagers and textile artists) Gather a collection of your work either in photos or in the material they were created. Going through the collection using your intuition pluck out the pieces that resonate with you today. After doing this - go back and assemble them in a way that pleases you without changing their inherent nature. Like the above exercise you can replicate but not bifarcate! Take a photo of the assemblage.
Artful Householders Walk through your home and with your intuition choose objects that resonate with you today. Collect these objects and place them in a way that pleases you without changing their inherent nature. Take a photo of this arrangement.

By all and every means - have fun! To create is to play...

7 comments:

Elizabeth Spann Craig said...

This sounds like fun, Jan! And I just *happen* to have a magazine that came in the mail today...

Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder

Patricia Stoltey said...

I'm going to play artful householder instead of Wordsmith...sounds like a fun.

Stacy Post said...

I'm up for it! Is there a deadline?

Jan Morrison said...

Knew I'd have some players! And no Stacy -see above - it is pretty rule free - you can post to this site or link to yours on here or keep it to yourself and you can do it within the week or today or save it for a day when you're out of ideas. I'll post my effort tonight. It was fun!

Jan Morrison said...

Child bride

The heart of this?
Smaller fish
knocked
scrubbed clean
that island never found.

I’m a believer in original sin
and the only change.
and the only change
Desire – the waste of young lives.
.

In real life
a corrupt and greedy capitalist.
you might say
you might say
the icing on the decay.
gave
slant to the balance.

Slant to the balance
“sinfully amusing, the heart of this”
A brief liason
with that swoony style
of cocaine on a madam’s table.
After years spent overseas
intimate relationships with women,
suggestive
suggestive
suggestive
summertime explodes,,,

One of the tribe
that island never found, smaller fish
assembled the fragments.
You might say.


Transposed poetry from Sept. 11, 2009, TLS pages 18-19

Stacy Post said...

Ack! Sorry I didn't read your post more closely this morning. I got excited by the colored text. I love thinking of myself as a wordsmith too. Forgive me? :)

The fish image is strong in your poem. I like the repetition...it makes me slow down and pay closer attention. I like the image of icing, it ties in nicely with the title and makes me think of a wedding cake. Interesting stuff here, Jan!

femminismo said...

I'd love to play the wordsmith. I'll post tomorrow.