This week was spent doing a few various things. Again, I feel like I am at a bit of a stand-still until I meet with an art therapist/social worker/ someone who works with girls this age to discuss my ideas and find a group of girls to start working with.
1) Coordinated with Julie Kaplan- works for the University Center for the Child and Family at U of M. Julie contacted me from my email to Strong Moms Strong Girls. I will be meeting with her this coming Wednesday (10/14). I am really looking forward to it! (30 minutes)
2) Contacted some of my friends to have them generate drawings/writings for me. This made me realize that I can get some very different responses and therefore had to weed through some of them. I just wanted to start collecting things, even if they may or may not be useful. I felt it was a good exercise. (1 hour)
3) Drafted my project proposal (3 hours)
4) Sent email to Ann Arbor Neutral Zone- suggested by Shay today. (30 minutes)
5) Continuing with my reading and research (1 hour)
What I accomplished/discovered/encountered:
Again, I am really looking forward to meeting with Julie. I think it will lead me in a good direction and give me some new insight. It will be interesting to bounce my ideas off of someone who works with this subject for their career. I am also glad that I have not met with anyone earlier because I finally feel I am able to clearly articulate my ideas (writing and having the proposal has helped so much!)
Here are a few of the drawings/writings that I collected from girls my age:
The text on the right says: In fourth grade I was severely bit by a dog and had to wear a bandage on my face for an entire year. The bandage covered my entire left cheek. The stories, whispers and giggles made me cry everyday. Not one day did my bandage go unnoticed. I felt as if the bandage was bigger than myself.
It felt good to start collecting things and having to ask people to give me something. I asked some girls my age to reflect on a specific event in which they remembered being psychologically bullied or mistreated by girls in elementary-middle school. I also asked them to handwrite whatever it is they wanted to tell, since I felt that would make their stories more personal. I'm still not 100% sure what to take from these pieces, however it was nice to start the process. Also, I saw how a simple question could evoke very different responses. For example, I had to discard some of the writings I got since they really seemed to be irrelevant. It is good to know that I have to be prepared for that. I think I am going to continue with this process to see what I get. I got this idea from our group session when we had to think of something to do with little time and money. Additionally, today while speaking with my group of 3 others sharing our proposals, the idea of reaching out to all the females in IP came up. They thought it would be interesting to ask for journal entries/ any artwork made during this time. I think this might be an interesting idea. Perhaps I should consider doing it before people may be going home next weekend for Fall break.
Also, today, I discovered the website lulu.com in class from Ashley. This seems like such a cool tool and a great option for me to make my book. You can also sell the book you make on this website, or get an ISBN number through them and sell it on amazon! I don't want to get too ahead of myself, but it is interesting to begin to think about my final product.
Lastly, my classmates today suggested creating a blog alongside my project. I have been thinking about this idea and I think it would be a really great tool. This way, girls can go online and look at other girls artworks to see that they are not alone in going through what they are going through. It would also be a good thing for mothers to see. Girls would be able to post whatever they want to the blog and share stories anonymously. It could be a cool thing to along with my project.
What I think I should do next:
-Meet with Julie!
-Hopefully get in contact with someone from the Ann Arbor neutral center
-collect more images/writings/stories from people my age
-Firm up project proposal
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