Put down a finger if you take pills daily. 

Put down a finger if you sometimes forget to take those pills. 

Put down a finger if typical pill sorters remind you of hospital stays, your grandmother's kitchen counter, or the florescent lighting of a CVS. 

Put down a finger if you like fun things. 

Now throw that thumb towards the sky because I have some good news for you today in this Art Moment update!

These pill organizers start off as the basic ones you're used to but Thredd figured out how to get things to stick to their plastic exteriors. They experimented with all types of mediums before figuring out what works to adhere all kinds of "toppings" to the little compartments. 

Thredd started making these organizers for friends but then the business took off as more and more people wanted to brighten up this neglected corner of our healthcare. 

If you want to know more about Thredd's story of Pill Joy, check out this news segment they were recently featured on. 

This month, Thredd offered their first in-person workshop where they took a small group of us through the whole process of decorating our own pill organizers from boring to absolutely joyful. I was lucky enough to snag a seat since I've been following Pill Joy on instagram for a while now. 

I didn't take a single picture while I was there because I was so busy being present in the learning and sharing space Thredd created that night at Fat Fancy. But someone was taking pictures! And you can see me in some of the shots Thredd shared on their instagram of the event. 

But since these Art Moments posts are all about me being inspired by someone else to create more art, let me show you the pill organizer I made with Thredd's help in the workshop. I'm calling it the Unicorn Convention. 

Given the opportunity to select from Thredd's amazing collection of toppings, I went full Lisa Frank and chose rainbows, unicorns, sprinkles, and of course glitter.  And let me tell you, I am obsessed with this pill organizer. Who wouldn't want to attend this party???

Getting to meet and work with Thredd, a fellow queer, disabled maker, has inspired me to look around at my daily habits and see what else could use some joy. If I've been overlooking my pill organizer this long, what else am I not seeing the potential in? 

I'm going to keep thinking on this challenge rather than forcing an answer right away. For now, I'm just going to be grateful for Thredd's creativity in thinking this up and generosity in sharing it with us. Each time I smile at my pill organizer (seriously, who thought I'd be doing that ever), I'll try to remember that joy can be infused in the little, necessary, every day things too. 

This is the first fall I didn't go back school in more than 30 years. *Insert record scratch here*

I thought I was going to be telling you something surprising, but then the gravity of that sentence hit me. I've just broken a trend I've been sticking to for my entire adult life and most of my childhood! Let's get into it a little bit. 

My teaching career started in the last 2 years of my graduate degree when I accepted a teaching assistantship at the University of Maine. I was taking classes in Feminist Literary Criticism and teaching Composition to first year students, making a whopping $12,000 a year and getting my Master's tuition waived. After the first semester of dividing my mental space between feminist criticism and first year composition, I had an epiphany. Though I'd grown up loving reading (and I still do!), I found I loved teaching others even more. 

I saw the "aha"s in my learners' faces when something clicked and I was delighted. A student told me my class helped her read her first book, cover to cover in English and my heart swelled. Another student told us about his summer wakeboarding accident and I cringed at the reality but marveled at his choice of sensory details. Yet another student came to office hours frustrated and tearful and left smiling and feeling confident about their next steps and I realized the coaching aspects of teaching were pulling me in. 

I didn't fight it.

I switched my focus from feminist criticism to composition studies. I wanted to be the best teacher I could be for my students and learning as much as I could was my first step. My composition courses were my favorites. Learning about how to communicate, connect, teach, encourage, challenge... I couldn't get enough. I finished my graduate program wanting to teach full time and I was lucky enough to be able to do that the next fall at Georgia Southern University in the Department of Writing & Linguistics. 

At GSU, I found my passion in learning and development. I can thank my colleagues for recruiting me into the Georgia Southern Writing Project after my first year at GSU. They pulled me into an immersive, transformative, 5-week summer intensive that changed how I approached teaching and reminded me of the joys of writing for fun and community. I began as a teacher consultant and then became the go to classroom technology person and a few years later, I was co-directing GSWP with my originally assigned mentor from that first summer intensive. I loved getting to create and facilitate trainings for local school teachers and my college colleagues. Getting to learn alongside other engaged faculty was a dream scenario -- teaching and learning in an iterative way that benefits our learners directly. What could be better? 

The 12 years I taught college writing in Georgia, I was able to hone my teaching skills and become better and more effective each semester. At GSU, I moved from a temporary instructor to a lecturer, then a senior lecturer, finishing as Assistant First Year Writing Program Coordinator. 

All this brings me to the present... Fall 2022 and for the first time since kindergarten... I didn't go back to school. I'll have more to say about why later, but I just want to clarify that it isn't at all because I've lost my love of learning or teaching. I'm still super passionate about both. I just think there can be other ways of engaging in the learning process outside of the traditional school system I've made my career in thus far. 

It's not news to any of us that learning happens everywhere, not just inside the walls of classrooms. I'm looking to explore those non-classroom spaces these days. How do we learn outside the standards; outside the defunded, asbestos-filled buildings; outside the lines? How can I jump in and impact the way others see learning? How can my passion help someone else find theirs? 

For now, I have more questions than answers and that's a fun place to be! So much possibility. So many options. 

I said at the top of this post that I didn't go back to school this fall... but that's actually not completely true. While I didn't go back to the classroom in the ways I'm used to -- creating a curriculum, building a course, distributing a syllabus, and teaching about a hundred new learners -- I went back to being a student and soaking up as much as I possibly can about my new options. 

I'm currently finishing up a credential through ACUE (Association of College and University Educators) that is focused on Effective Online Teaching. 

In this course, I'm learning that so much of my education career translates directly into the instructional design world. I'm following her curriculum to build out a course for a professional audience that will show off my instructional designer chops in my portfolio. I'm also meeting a lot of other great folks who are moving out of the education system and into learning and development. My ROI on this class is already solid. :)

So though I didn't go back to a traditional campus this fall, I'm feeling that new outfit, new notebook enthusiasm in a different way. Each time I log into Canvas for my ACUE course or Google Classroom for the ELVTR one, I get that rush of excitement that shows I'm in the right place. I'm still learning and always will be.

As long as I have that, I have all I need. 

What have you learned recently? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!​

In this new series I'm calling "Art moments," I'm going to be sharing some piece of art I've encountered and a piece of art it inspired me to make. 

Today, I'm thrilled to kick off this series on the launch day of my good friend's new mini-chapbook! Janet Dale's ghosts passing through is available on Amazon from Alien Buddha Press. Janet's poetry is very cool and I recommend you check out this piece called "I Go Back to October 2018" for some ghosty vibes I think we might be seeing more of in the chapbook. Awesome perk of that link is that you can either read the poem or listen to Janet read it to you. 

Also, take a quick look at the blurb on the back of the chapbook. 

Haunting? Ghost(ing)? Physics? You can clearly count me in here. 

Also, according to Janet herself, this mini-chapbook is 70% new material, so these are poems we can't read anywhere else. I'm so excited to get my hands on it. (It should arrive Friday!!!)

While I wait though... some ghosts passing through inspired art! 

Since all my materials came from newsprint today, the contrast is a little lower than I'm used to. It was a great stretch for me, creatively. My style is more loud and shiny than matte and muted. But I think that also aligns more with Janet's cover and the image of Central State Hospital in Milledgeville, GA photographed by Allison Renner.

​ A couple weeks ago, I mentioned picking up my first print copy of the gorgeous Art Journaling magazine. Since then, I’ve enjoyed reading the articles and drooling over the art. It’s a new goal of mine to get something published there… but more on that later. 

Today I want to zoom in on one article that really jumped out at me. I had an aha! moment when I read it, and I think it’s worth spending some time with.

A side note before we get into it... I contacted the editors at Art Journaling to ask about sharing some images here, but I haven't heard back. They are in the midst of changing editors right now, so I understand my email getting lost in the shuffle. I feel like this issue is important enough to write about even without their images though. Be sure to pick up your own copy of Art Journaling to see the beautiful images I talk about here!

​Ingrid Dijkers’ idea for moving trash to treasure was published in the July/August/September 2018 issue of Art Journaling magazine. In “CD Holders with a Story to Tell,” Dijkers walks us through the process of creating one-of-a-kind art journals out of CD cases she found in thrift shops. Dijkers goes a step beyond telling readers what to do by actually showing a number of pages from her upcycled CD case journals. The pages are decorated with animal image transfers and earth toned washes of color. In addition to the narrative-based article on her practice, Dijkers’ provides some bulleted tips for art journalers interested in learning from her experience. ​​

When looked at through the lens of environmental friendliness, Dijkers’ article yields much more than an art journaling how to. I am using the concept of critical lenses discussed in Losh and Alexander’s text, Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing. Losh and Alexander talk about how looking at the world through different perspectives will allow us to see different things (95).

​In my case, the environmental approach jumped out as I read about Dijkers’ use of discarded (nearly obsolete!) CD holders to house her beautiful art journaling. This upcycling suggests Dijkers cares about turning trash to treasure and being responsible about her use of environmental resources. Her first lines “Oh, those thrift shops! They offer more ideas than I really have time for!” (75) show this is not just a one-time practice of finding inspiration in objects others might consider throwaways. Like the artist’s version of a dumpster diver, Dijkers doesn’t need a pristine, new journal in order to create art. She is clearly inspired to make the old look new and keep CD holders out of the landfill at the same time. Through an environmentally focused lens, Dijkers’ article serves as a challenge for artists to create with what they have. ​

​The environmental thread is reinforced in the art journal pages shared in Dijkers’ article as well. Most obviously, Dijkers used image transfer to put black and white pictures of animals onto her pages before doodling on and/or journaling around them. Also, a quick flip through the pages of the article reveals a subtle color scheme that moves from a clay orange through burnt yellow, sage green, and finally sky blue. These are all earthy, natural colors that complement the animals depicted in these recycled journals.

​
The inclusion of animals and an earth tone color scheme are examples of intentional composition. Losh and Alexander tell us that intentional composition can be seen when visual elements work together to tell a story (16). In this article, the visuals tell the story of a calm, natural environment. This visual component allows us to see Dijkers’ message about experimentation and reimagining or recycling unused objects as tools for art in another way. I didn’t even notice this color scheme until I really started evaluating the visual argument, but if we think of this article attached to neon, 80’s style art… we would certainly notice that poor fit. Paired well, as they are here, the visual elements of any argument should only enhance the written message.

​Dijkers’ message is not limited to the text of this article, though that already is persuasive. By sharing her actual journal pages (complete with doodles, transfers, and personal writings), Dijkers shows she is practicing what she preaches. Losh and Alexander introduce us to the idea of performance, or the expression of the “fundamental features of your authority and identity” (139). By reading her bio at the close her article, we get a glimpse into how Dijkers performs this eco-consciousness in her everyday life. “Ingrid Dijkers recently moved to rural Michigan into a fairy-tale home in the forest,” her bio attests (78).

The strongest aspect of Dijkers’ argument in this article is its subtlety. As we all know from living in the world in 2018, the environment is a big topic of discussion. For better or worse, it’s often a polarizing conversation with “tree hugging hippies” on one side and “climate change deniers” on the other.

Instead of jumping into the fray and choosing a side, Dijkers shares one small act she took that allowed her to use non-recyclable materials that might ordinarily end up in a landfill to create beautiful art. By showing art journalers (the target audience of the Art Journaling magazine) the inside of these one-of-a-kind journals, she inspires us to look around among the unused or discarded objects rather than running to the craft store to buy new materials. Losh and Alexander would call this an implicit message (80) because she doesn’t state it outright, but lets us come to the conclusion ourselves while we read about her experience.

​Implicit messages show up for the careful readers and thinkers. Had I been flipping quickly through Art Journaling magazine looking for visual inspiration, I would have missed the environmental message completely. Likewise, if I were on the hunt for journaling prompts, I might have caught the bulleted tips and totally missed out on the visual story. My guess is that many readers of Art Journaling fall into these categories, at least sometimes. I know I haven’t spent this amount of time critically reading the other articles in this issue. It’s not a shortcoming, just a reality of how readers engage with magazines. 

It might seem like I’m getting ready to say Dijkers could improve her argument by making it bolder and more obvious to people soft-eyeing the magazine. But… #spoileralert… I’m definitely not. I think the subtlety of Dijkers’ argument sets it apart from other environmentally focused rhetoric and allows it to reach readers who might be turned off by a strong approach. 

Her argument is simple, unstated, and really... a good reminder of the benefit of moving beyond pro/con stances. The effectiveness of her persuasion is in the ease of it. She’s not asking anyone to change (or even consider!) their stance on the environment. Instead, Dijker is encouraging us to take a small step. And we all know one step leads to two…

These days when politics are so ever-present and so life-changing, it can sometimes feel like we’re always on a soapbox for one thing or another. I know I often feel powerless in the face of laws made way above my head. I feel exhausted by bad news on every social media platform. I feel weighed down by injustices, both those that directly affect me and those that I see affecting other vulnerable populations. 

Dijkers’ argument in “CD Holders with a Story to Tell” reminds me that not every impactful act requires a hard line in the sand, millions of dollars, or a position in political office. Small actions add up. Even one drop creates a ripple. 

For the next several months, I’ll be blogging on a topic I care a lot about (drumroll, please): art journaling! 

If this term is new to you, the good news is it is pretty self-explanatory. Art journaling is the combination of art and, you guessed it, journaling. Typically this is done in a journal but other than that, the form the art and journaling take is completely up to the art journaler. In my art journaling, I tend use a lot of paint, collage, doodling, patterning, printed pictures, and ephemera. ​

​I started art journaling in January 2016, so I’m fairly new to the game. If you want to know more about my beginnings with art journaling, you should check out my TEDxGeorgiaSouthern presentation. I’ve led art journaling workshops around Statesboro, co-hosted the July 2018 GlueBook Party (an instagram art meetup), and even incorporated art journaling practices into my first year composition course as brainstorming and organization tools.

Something that makes art journaling so easy and rewarding to share with others is that it is accessible to anyone with very basic supplies. Anyone with a pen and a notebook can do it! Add in some old magazines, a box of crayons, an old movie ticket stub, some stickers, well… you can see how easy it could be to get a lot of supplies without much investment. The most important supplies are creativity and a willingness to try. Because art journaling is personal, it’s not evaluated by any kind of rules or requirements. Anything you put on the page is good! As long as you are getting something from either the process or the product, the art journaling has served its purpose.

One thing I get from art journaling is a sense of community. I choose to share some of my art journaling pages online and through that I can connect with other art journalers. I have friends all over the world thanks to the art journaling community and I am regularly inspired and challenged by them. One thing going on right now that has inspired me is the Creative Bug and @getmessyartjournal collaboration: #creativebuggetsmessy. Here's their intro video. 

Throughout September, they'll provide daily prompts, instructional videos, and live instagram sessions. There’s even a free year of Get Messy membership to win, if you complete all the prompts! If you’re interested in checking out #creativebuggetsmessy, you can see membership info on their profiles. If you aren’t ready to pay, the instagram hashtag and live sessions are free of charge and allow you to create some art journaling pages along with the Get Messy folks. I watched a session tonight and it has me itching to get into my journal!

Now I’m curious about your experience. Have any of you tried art journaling? What about art or journaling separately? Let me know in the comments so I can get a sense of what you might like to read about as I go on. 

My students and I question these numbers though. How do they find these numbers? How many people didn’t admit to it but did take part? How much worse would the percentages be if people were honest? ​

This past weekend, the It’s On Us campaign celebrated its one year anniversary. You can find a full write-up of some of the nation-wide celebrations that took place in the White House press release here. One of the greatest things about the It’s On Us campaign is the way the prevention of sexual assault has been brought into public conversations. Between their celebrity studded PSAs and the twitter avatar edits, It’s On Us is popping up all over the place.

The national attention is great, but I’m most excited about some of the trickle down effects I see on Georgia Southern’s campus. Recently, our student newspaper, The George-Anne has been running a series on sexual assault on our campus.

In each of the above pieces, students take on this difficult topic of sexual assault and prevention with sensitivity and research. 

In “Sexual assault in our community,” Lauren Gorla tells us to wake up the problem and get involved with stopping sexual assault in its tracks. In “Sexual assault in our community: Why students don’t stop it and what happens after,” Will Price introduces us to a victim of sexual assault; our Sexual Assault Response Team (SART); Joel Wright, our Title IX coordinator; and other helpful campus groups and offices. Price writes about Sex Signals and other campus initiatives in “Sexual assault in our community: Why education matters.” 

Each of these pieces should be required reading for Georgia Southern students, faculty, and staff. The reporting comes straight from our community, so it’s impossible to distance ourselves from what we read. Our George-Anne reporters are doing the work we’re seeing at the national level from It’s On Us at the local level for our school. I applaud them and look forward to a new piece being released on Tuesday.

One of the best things I think the George-Anne journalists are doing in this series is playing to their own and their readers’ ethos. They place themselves squarely inside the Georgia Southern student population and write to us as members of this shared community. Lauren Gorla writes, “It’s up to our community to make this happen.”  Will Price cites statistics from our Georgia Southern University Police Department and shares a story of a Georgia Southern student, knowing these are the cases and people we most care about. In Thank You for Arguing, Jay Heinrichs tells us to “get the group to identify with you and you have won half the persuasive battle” (p. 55). Since these writers are part of our Georgia Southern community, they’ve won me over already. They are writing about us and for us. 

I really think we need to listen.