...choose your own artventure...
“If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”
-Vincent Van Gogh (even an earless man knows how to listen)-
You are cordially invited to the 0th annual CHOOSE YOUR OWN ARTVENTURE.
Ahoy ahoy and a pile of bok choy!
Have you ever wanted to make art but had no idea where to start? Scissors in hand, paintbrush in mouth, two pencils between your toes staring at a canvas on your computer. The fear is real. Art can be scary. Art can be a cave with glowing fire eyes and razor sharp teeth chomping entrance to a gut of undefined smoke. But art can also be cuddly. Art can be a velvet robe made of rose petals singing city pop and feeding you ice cream lollipops while massaging you with a fluffle of rabbits.
Art can be whatever you choose it to be. And what better choice to choose your art with than in a zoom room full of randos who have no idea why they are there either.
Choose Your Own Artventure is a two hour online art retreat where you will get the opportunity to make something out of anything to share with a bunch of anyones who will make anything from all the somethings everyone makes at it.
ORIGINS OF THEE ARTVENTURE
Two months ago in a fit of misguided openness to the world I set forth onto the blog-o-sphere and sent out a feeler for collaboration of undefined terms. The prompt posted in the writer’s forum was would you like to work with others. In general I like others, especially when the others are other than others I have previously liked. A good personal community is like a potluck fruit salad, keep cutting whatever fruit arrives and mixing it into the bowl. And so it was with intention, or through the chaotic hand of miraculous gods that I was contacted by an artist named Meara who writes a blog on neuro-diversity at https://lemniscateblog.wixsite.com/lemniscate.
Now to this point I had never heard of the term neurodivergent. My only understanding of divergence is that there is a youth sci fi novel and movie series named after it that I think is about buildings that chase people based on the trailers I didn’t watch. Neurodiversity is a proposed framework that argues there is intrinsic diversity in human brain function and cognition, and that certain things currently classified as mental disorders are differences and disabilities but are not necessarily pathological. As someone who fully embraces all that my mind has to offer, it was a joy to connect with this world I was previously unaware of. Also the logo is killer.
It is not easy to talk to strangers. The first ten years of my life in fact I was warned never to do so. Instead my friends and I stared at the stranger danger signs in our neighborhood and pretended the creeper in the graphic was a local child eating legend named Destroyger.
No doubt I was saved from the evil clutches of Destroyger by avoiding strange contact with strange people, but I was also bicycling the streets of fear and mistrust headed to the school of loneliness. As time went on I traded that fear and mistrust for the others, into a fear and mistrust for my mother, and brother (and also my sister and father but they don’t rhyme). The strangers I was meeting seemed far less dangerous than the people stealing my diary and blackmailing me into giving them the TV remote.
The internet is a strange place to meet people, or a normal place to meet strange people. I think I have met more people here than anywhere else on earth. There is no way I am introduced to the zombie turtle kid, the rogue helicopter pilot fighter, or the Manowar man without the internet’s tubed magic.
Using the internet to sing the praises of the power of the internet is probably proof I am part of a computer simulation, but I’m no Neo trying to fight it. Instead after meeting Meara and hearing about her group, we have made a plan to put the simulation to the test.
If you are human, animal, vitamin, or mineral you are invited to Choose Your Own Artventure. If you are none of those things you are still invited. If you are Destroyger you are unfortunately the only entity we have on the cannot enter list. You and the razor tooth smoke cave. Neither of you are welcome. We are sorry about that but it is for the safety of everyone. We wish you the best with your destroygeing.
“Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.”
-Twyla Tharp-
The 0th Annual Choose Your Own Artventure
WHAT IS IT?
Choose Your Own Artventure (aka CYOA) is an open format opportunity to create ANYTHING, share it with STRANGERS, and then collaborate to take that pile of STRANGE ANYTHING and make it into a shareable version of YOUR SOMETHING that you then give to the broader US (or THEM if you are of a paranoid mindset).
WAIT, WHAT IS IT?
Kind of an online salon. We are gathering a zoom room of ANYONE who is interested in making art. ANY KIND of art is welcome as long as you can somehow produce a digital deliverable in the end. Write, Draw, Paint, Dance, Sing, Perform Comedy. Anything goes! At the end of the first event we will share what we have made with each other with the goal of having everyone use everyone's something to create something else in one month’s time.
WHY IS IT?
We meet so many people online but how often do we share in the gift of creation with them? One of humankind’s premier gifts is the ability to make and create and change and fix and share. Let’s see what happens when a group of strangers try to make something out of nothing with each other.
WHEN IS IT?
SATURDAY // 11/18/23
12PM PDT // 3PM EDT
WHERE IS IT?
Online – Sign Up here!!
WHAT IS I SHOULD BRING?
Yourself and anything you want to make ART with.
WHAT IS ART?
Art is something that stimulates an individual's thoughts, emotions, beliefs, or ideas through the senses
WHO IS ART?
The man who serves me smoked salmon at my deli.
WHY SHOULD I IS IT?
Because you are an artist and/or you have extra smoked salmon.
ARE THERE RULES?
Just a few rules. Full enthusiastic support for others to try. Have fun. Be nice. Have a great time. Make something. Share. Make something else with whatever is shared with you.
I WANNA IS IT!
I would love to see you there. Please let me know if you have any questions.
“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”
-Edgar Degas-
When I reached out to the internet that handful of weeks ago I had no vision of what might come back to me. You might say the origin of this artventure was just a willingness to find out whether the great unknown could be known. But no artventure should be traveled solo. There are man eating caves and destroygers out there in the world. The fall is coming, and behind her the winter. And if this thing is going to spring into action I am going to need some…er…help…so dear reader if you have made it this far, know that our journey has just begun. Please come join me on this artventure, because there is no way I can do this without you.
Conversely, pleasure is the first of all illusions! ArtVenture sounds cool!
CHOOSE YOUR OWN ARTVENTURE? How did I miss this?! This may be over, but the artventures can't stop, won't stop.