Before I get on my self-indulgent week of celebrations, I implore you to ALL to head over to Beverly’s Afropolitan blog. This morning she has posted about a guy who has just filled my heart with hope, it is overflowing actually, and all because he created a windmill from backyard scraps! THIS is what I call handmade, what a champion – this guy is our future!! And he has not even half of the wealth of one of us. I am jumping out of my skin with excitement and inspiration and I just had to share it with you. Go and take a look at the video, post a comment, and while you are there, read the article called “Africans to Bono: ‘For God’s sake please stop!'” from The American. BRILLIANT article. IMISO!

image courtesy of Bob Sherman.

from 3 continent family – beautiful setting: evocative and simple, a perfect place for a little wandering heart…

I am so thrilled with your responses with this project, and I’ve been having a little stroll through all your blogs and I could not be any more excited about the talent out there! Oh you all have so much creative ability, I’m speechless at the thought of how beautiful this book can be. Here are your questions answered and don’t hesitate to ask more – this beginning stage is all about discussing the idea and getting your creativity flowing. Just like a pre-production meeting, we can communicate our ideas and get the look, style, feel and concept in our minds and then we will get to work!

With my introduction of the idea yesterday, the first part of the creative process is that you start to think about heart shapes and start to see them out and about – either in your minds eye or in spaces and settings around you. This is vital to the creative process as it will guide you into your own direction.

At this stage here are your first questions answered:

1. I will not set a deadline yet as you need a little time to get your ideas flowing. We want this to be as beautiful as possible, it is not going to be a spit-it-out project: this is a real production with a real result, it will be treated with professional hands. BUT there will be a deadline set at my discretion when I see you are ready. I will give plenty of notice.

2. Your heart shaped object must be placed inside a setting – a table setting, a floor setting, a room setting and so on. It must be ‘seen but not heard’. In other words, I want the image to contain your object but not be too loud in the image – not be screaming out saying ‘look at me look at me!’. It will be subtle. Why? Because I want readers to be drawn INTO the image. I have found a few images of room settings amongst you that I love, and this will give you an idea of what direction to head into.

3. The images you submit must be hi-resolution JPEG or TIFF images, 300 dpi, appx 2,400 pixels x 3,000 pixels which is appx 8″ by 10″ – if this is not possible then let me know but we must aim for the best quality for the images to be of publication standards. If you simply do not have a camera that is good enough then perhaps your image can be smaller in the book but it will not be one of the features. Remember you can ask a friend who has a better camera to help you take the shot. This is a collaborative project so collaborate away!

4. Send your images to this address: myheartwanders@gmail.com
Make sure you state clearly your name, your contact details, and a brief description of your work and your image. If you have a little story or poem or some text to compliment your image that would be great.

5. ALL LANGUAGES WILL BE ACCEPTED FOR TEXT, so if your mother tongue is not english that is absolutely fine and is even more welcomed!! It will be the diversity of this project that will make it special. And we all know how much we LOVE fonts and other languages. Please translate your work if possible into english so that I know what it means!

Here are another two spaces I found that might help you to think about where you might like to place your heart shape. These images are from Livvia’s beautiful blog – a great source of photographic inspiration for ‘my heart wanders’…

Can you imagine seeing a little heart shaped object in here somewhere?

I’ve enjoyed going through your flickr sets too everyone, there is loads of inspiration amongst you and I will post a few shots here and there in this beginning stage to help other participants with their own work.

image from the Underwood Photo Archives

I have a rather special announcement to make!

If you’ve wandered the rooms of the (blog)house you may have noticed that one room seems, well, a little empty, be that my Artist Studio (apologies for the funny language, I’m currently reading Robinson Crusoe be that written by such one Daniel Defoe who writes in the tongue of the 17th century man, viz. almost unreadable English).

So although the Artist Studio has been a little vacant, it is only because I have been busy writing and planning my next art project and I am very pleased to reveal that it will be collective and it involves ALL OF YOU. So now, I invite you to come for a little wander with me as I pour my heart out and tell all…

Image by Clarence S. Bull c. 1925, from the Underwood Photo Archives

(Click here to read more…)

Monday morning procrastination is becoming a very bad habit now that I have a blog. Will you all stop inspiring me!! No don’t, I joke only, I will shrivel up and die if I don’t get my fellow-blogger fix. Here are some of this mornings finds that I simply must share with you…

Maple Syrup Only’s stunner collection of pollys found on the ever-inspiring Maditi Likes.

And then there is this little number:

Su Blackwell’s paper creations found via Marie at là.

found via home rejuvenation.

Must clean house now.

Imiso means ‘tomorrow’ in the Xhosa language of South Africa, and is the name of this stunning collection of ceramics. Owned by 4 South Africans, Imiso Ceramics vision is to not only be a distinctively unique African brand, but also to inspire and be an example to young artists and entrepreneurs in Africa. They have achieved their goal and are indeed a great example, now exporting pieces to Paris, New York, Austria and also to Anthropology throughout the USA.

The website is beautiful – I highly recommend taking a look and be sure to look out for the ‘imiso’ range in your local homewares boutique, and if they don’t sell it then recommend it! My stylist’s pick are their pieces in the pinch bowl range.

“Whatever you dream of today, you will realize it tomorrow if you are determined and fully committed to that dream” – Imiso Ceramics.

Here here. I will update you on the Kenyan Crisis soon, but looks like peace is being restored although it is only due to mass confusion and fatigue. In the meantime, let’s support African designers. I will continue to put African designers and creatives in the spotlight even after this terrible tragedy, in the hope that equality amongst us all is achieved, oh for it to be in my lifetime would be the greatest gift of all. Here’s to tomorrow.