I just got the new issue of CRAFT Magazine and was delighted to find this little write up on Wreck this Journal!
I’m off to Blogher. For those of you attending, I’ll be speaking at 4:30 on Friday, and doing a book signing on Saturday morning at 12:45. As an added bonus, the first 5 people who come to the signing (and mention that they read this post) will recieve a free copy of “the Guerilla Art Kit”, (courtesy of Princeton Architectural Press)! Yes it’s true.
In other exciting news, I just finished a book project with one of my favourite presses, Little Otsu! It’s called “the Non-Planner Datebook”. And I know it’s a little premature to announce it but I’m so excited to have worked with them, (and they mentioned it briefly already on their blog, so I figure it’s okay.)

i have actively entered into a period of not thinking.
another experiment of mine.
i realize i am contradicting myself as the act of writing this out requires a certain amount of thinking. so i will spit this out as quickly as possible and get back to the business of not thinking.
it is the thinking that gets me in trouble every time. thinking about what to do next, about what I should be doing, about what could go wrong, about what i’m not doing right, about where the next job will come from, about the future.
when I look at the times when I have felt the most centered I notice that I was in my body more. just experiencing the day, as it was, as opposed to trying to shape it into something. there are many moments that teach me that all the shaping does little to affect the actual outcome. I know now, that it is helpful to sit and do nothing at times. But I still resist it, as the controlling mind wants to force things out of my body, (motivated entirely by fear, fear of not making a living, fear of financial ruin, etc.)
Maybe some of my thinking is due to the fact that I am reading Joan Didion these last few days. In the “Year of Magical Thinking” she shows us that at times (when we face a major crisis) life is just something that we have no choice but to endure. When waking up from sleep becomes full of effort. Often this is the only way many of us ever reach that place of full surrender. That place of pure existence. Not thinking, just being.
I am reminded that I can choose to surrender whenever I need to, that I need not have to experience a crisis to put myself into the present moment. That it is really important for me to use my body more, actively engage the senses in the most primal of ways. what if my only job today was to take care of the business of living? Move the body, prepare food, plant something, sew something, consume water, give love to other humans/animals
.
i’m on it.
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related research:
The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
The Day to Day Life of Albert Hastings
what a day by tucker nichols

feeling quiet lately. i have just finished a bunch of projects that have been hanging around for a long time, too long. this is the first time in what feels like years that I have nothing to do next. it seems that I take on too much most of the time. I am so needing some time to do nothing for a couple of weeks and let new ideas flow in. though the universe has given me a few ideas, i need to let them sit in my body until they are ready to come out.
summer has never been a big time for creating in an intense manner. my body wants me to be outside, sitting by water somewhere. my heart is always in woodland beach at this time (where my cottage was growing up, and my family still is during the summer months.) I crave sitting on the beach reading terrible magazines, and novels, gossiping with girlfriends, and feeling the hot sand on my feet. there is nothing better.
today i will leave the pile of mess on my desk behing and follow a tip given to me by a neighbor, of a swimming hole a short bikeride away. just me and the journal and a pond. this is all that I want right now. the thing that will allow my soul to rest and hear the wind again. it is one thing to notice the wind, but it is quite another to really listen to it and take it into your lungs.
i feel as if i am waking up again after a long sleep.
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I’m going to be speaking at the Blogher conference on Friday July 27 in Chicago, on a panel with several talented and articulate artists as well as doing a booksigning. If you are going to be attending, please come and say hi! Here is an description of the talk:
Blogging is More Than Words
Many bloggers actually consider their online space a visual medium. Can the online rendition of your visual output really do it justice? What do visual artists get out of showing their work online? What about virtual collaboration? Gayla Trail moderates a conversation with bloggers Tracey Clark, Renee Garner, Keri Smith and Zoe Strauss, who are making the most of technology to further their non-textual art.