Wednesday, January 20, 2010

The blog campers... get creative!



Bee:
One of the many, many topics discussed at Blog Camp was the subject of creativity.   If you feed the creative mind with the right sort of oxygen, can anyone light up? 

Having thought of myself as a deeply uncreative person for most of my life, the company of bloggers has challenged my pre-conceptions of myself.  Are we all a little bit guilty of ring-fencing artistic expression and then filing it away into mental drawers that read CAN or CAN'T?  Some of us cook, some of us knit, some of us can draw, or sew, or take beautiful photographs, but can we all do a little bit of whatever we put our minds to?

When Julochka told the January Blog Campers to bring art journals, my mental "I can't do that" switch was immediately short-circuited.


She brought out her treasures
and shared them with us

But when confronted with stacks and stacks of "pretty papers" and every imaginable sort of doo-dad, I was so impatient to begin that I started yelling (not altogether politely) for some glue and scissors.  It was a wonderfully relaxing thing to do with our group, especially since it didn't inhibit me (in the slightest) from keeping up a steady stream of chat.



Camille captures that rare expression: 
 me, with my mouth closed
(the child kept grabbing the new Nikon off of me;
she's not nearly as intimidated by it as I am)

In the spirit of Blog Camp collaboration, B and I thought we would mingle together some of the BC moments.  While my (newly) 12 year old daughter was observing everything we said and did, and then cataloguing it in her Art Journal, B was taking pictures.  (The pictures of the people are mine; despite Julochka and Spud's injunctions against "flash," the lighting conditions of the blue room and the yellow room in deepest winter encouraged me to experiment with that aspect of my new Nikon.)

B:
Our very special honorary blog camper Camille created some art journaling pages for each of the blog campers. She's incredibly observant and talented, and so her pages are a perfect reflection of the different personalities at Blog Camp 3.0 and some of the crazy and silly things these people said...

Poor Kristina had a migraine... 
(but she still had the sensitivity to bring my child an art journal of her very own:  Bee)



Spud was talking about botox, boys and cars?
(So far, she is holding up well . . . but then she does have those Megaboys to contend with.  Bee)






B obsessed about yellow and her new favourite TV series: Glee. Bee is also pretty Glee-ful, but Spud was NOT impressed.

(I loved this beautiful close-up of B's sweet face.  Yellow is the perfect color for this Spanish girl -- and her ever-present sunny smile.  Bee) 







Julie let us play with all her pretty, pretty paper, and had something to say about Bee... :)
(Humph!  Bee)




Polly, who is not called Polly, wondered why we all still call her Polly...and bossily asked B to stop drinking (which was probably a good thing!)

(Polly:  absorbed by her ART.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, Polly tapped into the mental skills of concentration that she honed during her long graduate-student apprenticeship.  Bee)






Sabin showed Camille all her favourite animals and sweets...

(These girls will never grow up being intimidated by their lack of creativity!  Sabin muddles the nature/nurture question, because in her case it is so obviously BOTH.   Bee)






Elizabeth was surprised that green was supposed to be her colour according to her horoscope...

(Elizabeth, the only newbie Blog Camper in the group, proved the Blog Camp magic.  Despite already well-established friendships, Elizabeth fitted in beautifully.  She was a bit camera-shy, but I did manage to catch a glimpse of those graceful, capable hands.  Bee)






As for my own Art Journal . . .  well, did I create something equally stylish?

Frankly, I didn't really have the knack for it that my creative and observant daughter displayed.
Indeed, after completing five pages, my daughter noticed that I had put them in the journal both backwards and upside-down.

Oh well.  Baby steps.


from Elizabeth's Soul Food

Even when I photographed the spinning spider, Elizabeth's symbol for creativity, I realized that I had pictured it upside-down!



15 comments:

Polly said...

yay! what a great nostalgic trip in time! Camille's journal says it all, and I challenge anyone who's read this and says they are not impressed by the blog campers creativity

Bee, it's a sign of great creative mind to create one's art journal upside down and front to back. it's called thinking outside the box....

thank you both for this lovely post!!!

julochka said...

this is such a great collaborative post. and makes me feel SOOoooo much better after my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day...thank you for giving me back a bit of the blog camp magic.

rxBambi said...

*sighing loudly... and often*

(stinkin husband... what does he know anyway...)

it looks like an absolutely wonderful magical weekend. I love the art journal. I am curious, tho, about the disagreement in parenting...

*sighing again*

Elizabeth said...

This is really a true reflection of the weekend. My mind is screaming, I wanna go back, give me the blog camp bubble, so much more fun.

Thank you B & Bee for making this beautiful collaboration.

Unknown said...

Every time I look at this again, it makes me miss BC even more... and the blue rooom!

julochka said...

just a note about disagreeing with beth's parenting...sabin and camille were happily playing mariocart on the wii and, because it was past 11, beth tried to make camille come to bed. so i asked the perennial question--what are they gonna remember? and asked if they couldn't stay up a little longer since it was the weekend. :-) so no more drama than that.

Mari Mansourian said...

ohhh so much fun, and creativity and bonding... sigh
so glad you guys enjoyed
:)

spudballoo said...

I have the WORST internet at the moment. I read this last night but didn't have the patience to post a comment..

this is perfect, I love it. I had the best best best weekend. Just can't blog about it yet, I can't find the words. You bloggy gals mean so much to me (blub blub).

Nice work ladies xxx

Elisa @ Globetrotting in Heels said...

Awww, this is so fun!! I definitely want to come to the next one and meet all of you fabulous ladies!!

Elizabeth said...

This looks so wonderful and reminds me a lot of our BLOGSTOCK in 08

yes, yes to this wonderful experience for all.

Laura said...

this looks like so much fun! Thanks for giving us a sneak peek!

Fantastic Forrest said...

I am pea green with envy. My Daring Daughter and I wish we were there.

Merisi said...

I would say that your innate creative talents got ahold of you and your camera and decided to picture the spider upside down (would be a great picture for a children's book "What's wrong with this image?).

I came over from Bee's and enjoyed your camp experience!

Pamela Terry and Edward said...

It looks like a petri dish of creativity!

TBM said...

Oh what fun! Creativity and camaraderie--that is the true spirit of blogging :-)

:-) From one of Bee's friends in the NL