If you haven't yet, try to catch the 1000 Journals exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) soon, because the show is going to be taken down in 24 days.
Nothing beats the chance to handle the journals in person, but if you're too far away, there's great blog coverage. Just a few examples: our dear friend Adda Dada, who came to all screenings at the San Francisco International Film Festival, put up a set of pictures on his Flickr site.
Nick, of the Worldli Blog, wrote about discovering Janice's pages in Journal 751, which "included an email and phone number at the end of the 3-page entry; the phone number had a 732 area code which is the same area code that my parents live in back in Jersey. So I took out my BlackBerry and I emailed her right there, standing above this book that had changed hands multiple times all over the world." Nick and Janice became pen pals, Facebook friends, and may meet when Janice is in California on the AIDS/Lifecycle tour. Janice's story in our film: her journal was quarantined in the Anthrax scare of 2001.
Here's an upclose look at the card Someguy created for the exhibition, along with tips on successful promotion.
Artquiltmaker Jaye and her friend Julie each posted about the show they visited together, and made some interesting (if not critical) notes about what people put in the journals on exhibition.
I love this blog post, from In The Pine: "walls of journals that people. strangers. sisters. brothers. write in.
telling anything. drawing something. cutting and pasting everything.
they were filled with secrets. confessions. stories. art. george bush.
it was powerful to read and look at. i could have stayed hours reading."
Laura Mappin (who is in the film) wrote about her entry, "I riffed off of someone else's offering -- what if the hokey pokey is what it's all about?" Engineer's Daughter wrote, "I found an empty spot in one of the journals and added a little bit of my own writing, making it extra-personal just for good measure. It's both wonderful and terrifying that I'll never know who will read it."
In an earlier post, I mentioned blog stories in "Adoption & Fire," Sean Woolsey's blog, and Steve Rhodes' flickr set, all with great pictures.
The film will screen again on Free Thursday, April 2nd. Leave a comment if you're planning to come to the screening, please... I may come, too.
Picture by Steve Rhodes
Picture from the In The Pine blog
Update March 30: Stephanie Pau, Someguy's co-curator, wrote a wonderful article in SFMOMA's Open Space blog about the making of the 1000 Journals Exhibition.
Update April 22: Here's another great post about the Project and Exhibition...
Stay tuned, dear Marie, there will be more opportunities to see and add to the journals!
Posted by: andrea | April 17, 2009 at 09:24 AM
WoW! This is just too fabulous! I wish I had gotten hold of one of those traveling journals - it's an astounding thing to have conceived and what an opportunity to learn!
Posted by: Marie | April 17, 2009 at 09:22 AM