This past Monday I returned to my classroom for the first time since early November. I won’t lie and say that I was filled with anxiety and depression. A friend is doing her PhD research on the effects of COVID19 on teachers and students. I could go on and on about how challenging it has been. HOWEVER and that is a really big HOWEVER, I did spend a lot of time engaging in creative shenanigans to help me get through the week.
52 Frames- The first week of every new year is always a self-portrait. I mentioned it last week. Here is a link to my image. I was super excited about this image for what what it represents– the start of a long story! I have decided to take my entire 52 Frames journey this year and call it: This is how I roll. Each image will be example of how I have chosen to live my life. We get judged a lot about our choices–whether it is my funky colored hair or not having kids or how we spend our money. I am very much looking forward to a creative reflection on how I live my life. I spent a lot of time commenting on photos from the album this week, too. It is always fun to see the faces of fellow framers. If you read through the descriptions so many people (myself included) say how much they hate pictures of themselves. Were it not for this challenge, in some cases I would never know what someone looked like! And holy moly– there are some incredibly creative portraits. Take a looksy. You will not be disappointed. The theme for this week is leading lines and I am super happy with the image that I captured with my phone. Stay tuned for next week when I share it.
The biggest news of the week is that I have plunged head first into my newest long-term project and I am over the moon excited! Tom mentioned in passing that it would be fun if I wrote the back stories about my Oodle Doodles. I was not sure that I had enough of them to make it worthwhile. Well…I spent a good chunk of time during my last week of break drawing a clean version, scanning and coloring them as a I mentioned last week. Well this week, I have given them all names and professions. I am working through assigning characteristics and hobbies/interests to them. While digging through a cabinet at school, I found an old book of journal prompts that sparked another idea. Instead of writing about them in the third person, I am going to write about them in the first person. For example, Axel tells the story of how he went blind when he was 12. Another Oodle tells the story of how the love of her life gave her a Figa charm when she set off to hike the El Camino de Santiago in Spain. I am going to add a page to this site that houses all of the stories as I finish them. Stay tuned! I am 100% consumed by this project, so I’m hoping there will be a story up sooner rather than later!
