Have you Received a Drawing?

The drawings have been mailed! If you have received a drawing in the mail, please let us know by posting a comment to this post! We'd love to hear what you think of the drawing you received, and the project in general. Thanks!

City Paper article!

A great article on the project came out today in the Philadelphia City Paper!
If you're visiting from the article, or if you've participated, please leave a comment to this post with your impressions. And come by on Saturday night!
The A-Space, 4722 Baltimore Ave West Philly, 5-9 pm.

In related news, a friend I had dinner with alerted me to the presence of one of the drawings on the Septa Watch Blog.

And, this post as well from a Philadelphia Weekly blog. not sure if this is good press or not...

May 26th at the A-Space

wow! what a night. Ken, Rebecca and I collected about 20 drawings this evening, the most we've ever gotten at the A-Space. Lots of drawings to the Mayor and the President, along with some great drawings by children for their families, and the usual assortment of fantastic and wonderful ideas that people come up with on the street when invited to make a drawing... the A-Space is getting full up of drawings, and the response to the show of drawings has been great.

May 25th at the A-Space

A lovely afternoon on the sidewalk with Isaac... a first-time facilitator who did great! Lots of interesting conversations and connections. People really took their time making their drawings today, and generally seemed more interested than usual. Lots of our friends were out, making it easier to attract people we didn't know. The room is really looking like an art exhibition now, with the walls full of drawings for people to come in and look at.

May 24th at Clark Park

Jenny, Leigh and I had a party at the Park! Lots of friends and new acquaintances stopped by to draw, and then hung around chatting and enjoying the sunshine... wonderful children, a couple making a drawing to the UN leader together, and great farmer's market snacks. yes.

May 19th at the A-Space

This was a special night at the A-Space- a writer for the City Paper was with Mary and I for the evening, chatting with us and with the participants about the project. Look for the article in the May 29th issue! It was a somewhat quiet evening, with time for more in-depth conversations with the people who did participate. Issues included affordable housing, owndership of land, and gun control.

May 18th at the A-Space

With rain forecast for the afternoon, I arrived at the A-Space thinking flexibly... which was a good thing, because there was another event that had been scheduled for the space at the same time as our project's time-slot. Leigh and I set up outside, and had a bustling amount of activity for a while, before the rain started to fall. Not being able to set up inside, we held an umbrella over our table for a little while before packing things up...

May 17th at Clark Park

Another glorious day at Clark Park! Jenny was with me, and as a first-time facilitator, she did great! She decided to try standing closer to people and approaching them more personally to ask them to participate, which worked nicely. ( at the park, I tend to hang back a little from the crowd of passers-by, and announce the project loudly so that more than one person can hear me)
Despite the good numbers of people at the Farmer's Market, we didn't get as many participants as in the past. But we had some interesting interactions, which is also one of the main goals of the project...

May 12th at the A-Space

The first rainy day at the A-Space, and a chance to try out the rain plan: I put a sandwich board sign outside the door, with my umbrella propped over it to keep the sign dry. Liz was with me, and we set up a table inside with the clipboard and markers. Then I posted myself at the door to invite people inside to make drawings. Much to our surprise, we got two very interested people right away! They turned out to be the only takers... I chatted with a good number of folks passing by, and handed out a lot of postcards with the information on when people could come back. Liz and I packed up a little early once it became clear that we weren't going to be getting more participants, but had a nice chat. And Liz made a great drawing too- I didn't take a picture of it, so you'll have to go to the A-Space to see it!

May 11th at the A-Space

Rebecca and I flagged down quite a number of participants on this grey day... in between running across the street to check out the porch sale there. As usual, an interesting mix between personal and political, whimsical and specific. The room at the A-Space is really starting to fill up, and I think by the end of the month, we'll be displaying drawings up to the ceiling!

May 10th at Clark Park

Another great day at the park! It was the annual Clark Park May Fair, with lots of folks out enjoying the music, market, and food. Lots of old friends were about, and we had three children participate. It didn't seem to take much work to encourage people to participate, or maybe it was just that Nava was doing such a good job. We collected about twenty drawings in the two hours! Readers, participants, and facilitators, please do scroll down to the bottom of the posts and let us know what you think of the project!

May 5th at the A-Space

Mary and I enjoyed the lovely spring evening together on Baltimore Ave, along with lots of friends, acquaintances, and passers-by who stopped to make drawings. It worked so much better at the A-Space with two of us there- one of us could be inside putting up drawings, while the other stayed on the sidewalk.