Meeting and beginning: part 2

The first part of Meeting and Beginning was mostly my impressionistic response to the first evening of the ecological artmaking project at the RCM. Now when I look back at the notes I made, there's so much more to record about the artists, the people who came to the first session, and the way the project will take shape.

By my count, there were 31 people in the room, including --

Nicole Arends, the Community Programs Leader of the RCM's Learning Through the Arts project; Rick Monaco, musician -- a hand drummer and percussionist who not only plays drums but makes them;
Andrea Pillar, visual artist specializing in ceramics.

Each of these facilitators have considerable background in working with community groups.

The other participants include people of all ages and backgrounds. Friends have come together, also some family groups who want to work together.

A third artist who will be involved in the project is Heather Dick, whose area is drama and creative writing. Since she can't be with us for the first week or two, she introduced herself in a video. She asked each person there to write down ("in 25 words or less") what excites us about ecology/the environment and what aspects we would like to explore. The list of responses from that evening have already been sent out to all the participants and the words that recur reflect what each person said by way of introducing ourselves to the entire group and identifiying which of the four elements ~ air, earth, fire, water ~ we felt at the time most attuned to:

Restoration. Regeneration. Exploration. Honouring our environment. Setting a new paradigm. Eating locally. Remaining conscious and conscientious. Interconnection. Collaboration and connectedness. Interdependence. Beauty. Other living organisms. Balance. Infinite complexity. Our earth and all its wonder. Healing and creating. Learning from natural cycles. Diversity. Global ecosystem.

With such a rich vocabulary from the outset and a framework in place, we'll be encouraging each other to play with and prompt our creativty. We'll have six more weeks to give shape, in any media, to all our dreams about and desires for the ecosystem followed by three weeks of putting all the elements together into a shape we can take to Earth Day Festivities April 20 and the Green Living Show April 25 t0 27.