And now for something quite different...

Sometimes something emerges from my pen that I really don't expect. That was the case with a piece I did for the Burnaby School District. We were trying to chart the many projects and initiatives they've put in place to support literacy in Burnaby, and came up with the idea of representing it as a tapestry. I had an idea that I'd include words, drawings, and some collage elements (which I've long wanted to play with), and that the 'tapestry' would be built around the 5 participant groups Burnaby's programs support. But beyond that I was pretty fuzzy.

So I rolled out a l o o o o o o o n g piece of paper — the longest chart I've ever done — sketched in a pencil outline of the edges, and started drawing. I sketched in the boxes containing the main categories. Then I sketched in boxes containing the subsections. Then I started adding colour…and images…and collaged in some photos of Burnaby student art…and thought, "Hmmm." I wasn't at all sure that I was going to like what came out. But I kept on. I added connector lines, added more colour, added texture…and bit by bit it started taking shape. I started liking what I saw after all.

By the time I finished the second section it was starting to look quite rich. Then it was time for the Aboriginal section. Instead of doing it in a square like the others, I made it round to match their Aboriginal Circle Program.

After four days of work, the tapestry was finally finished. (I had somehow imagined I'd get it done in a day — talk about underestimating the time things will take…) I added a bit of pastel to the main headings to punch them out a bit — and it was done! It didn't (and doesn't) look quite like anything else I've done in this genre, and I don't think I really had a clue what it would look like till I was about halfway through. But I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with the final result. More importantly, Burnaby S.D. is delighted with it. Here's what it looks like:

C2D2

Righto, I said I would post a few charts from C2D2 (the Canadian Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation), which happened here in Vancouver in mid-November. As I said in my previous post, it was both fun and exhausting — fun because graphic recording is inherently fun, and it was cool to actually be doing this at C2D2 when it was at the first C2D2 two years ago that I was first introduced to graphic recording! Life is a circle. It was also fun because I got to work with two other graphic recorders, Sue Davis and Deborah LeFrank, whom I had met at Christina's 'Graphics Bootcamp' last spring. I love working as part of a team, and as you can see from the picture at left, we had a good time working together!

It wasn't all goofing around, though: we worked HARD! That's where the exhausting part comes in. It was 2.5 days of very intensive charting, both up front during the plenaries and on sketchpads during breakout sessions. By the end of the conference, I was well and truly bagged. I haven't got good photos of all the charts yet, but here are a couple of the main ones.

This one was done for the first plenary, in which Adam Kahane spoke about "Facing Complex Issues." He talked fast — so we had to work fast!

Just so you can see how very differently two graphic recorders can capture the same talk, I'm attaching Deb LeFrank's chart here as well. (I don't think Deb has a web page or I'd include a link...) I like the way Deb organizes her material, and particularly how she handles text. One thing I realized when I looked at her work is that most of my body text is the same size, whereas Deb works with more variety of text size, which creates focal points and an interesting typographic 'texture'. Note to self!

The chart at left is from the Day 2 plenary panel. This one went even faster than Adam Kahane's; I was so busy scribing that I hardly took in anything they said! I think that's an occupational hazard of this work. You listen, you get it down, you let go, you move on.

The one below is a collaborative effort. I did the bits around the edges at home before the conference (Welcome to C2D2, the map, and the drawing at bottom right), then we filled in the centre on Day 1 as people called out things they discovered they had in common with others at their table. As you can see, some of the things people had in common were pretty funny!

Well, actually, maybe you can't — some of the writing is pretty small. My favourite is "have all done laundry". Yeah!! That's something that'll bond ya.

Here's the last one for today: another chart I created at home (my bedroom wall is serving as my studio these days) — this one is a chart showing what topics were being addressed at what tables.

And that pretty much brings us up to date! So farewell to 2007, and here's looking forward to what 2008 will bring...

It's catch-up time again...

One of the things I mean to do this year is to keep my blog relatively up to date! (Are you listening, Avril?) Actually, what I'd really like is to make enough money to hire someone to design me a real website — but that's a wish for another day, and this column is about today. Or rather, about the past few months, since what I mean to do here is to update this site with examples of stuff I did since my last post, which was...whenever...

So, without further ado:

This is part of a big mural I did for a school in Surrey — they wanted a graphic representation of their staff Pro-D day.



And this is another part of the same mural. (There's more, but this covers most of the visually interesting part of it.)
















I quite like this one just above, which illustrates a collective vision for a successful supported child development program. It was done live but I had more time than usual to think about the layout and organize the content.












On the other hand, this is an example of a custom chart I created at home for a conference I later graphically recorded live. I like going back & forth between live chartwork (on-the-spot recording) and advance chartwork that I can do on my own time. The live work is exhilarating and challenging, and I love the interaction with people. But the home work allows me time to design the mural and to think more carefully about what images I'll use. And to research new images that then (hopefully!) get stored in my memory bank for future live work. And so it goes...

OK, it's late and I need to get my beauty sleep. My next post will feature images from C2D2, the Canadian Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation. That was a 3-day marathon, which was both fun and exhausting. What was especially fun about it was working as part of a graphic recording team. But I'm getting ahead of myself. More tomorrow (which of course will appear above this post, thus appearing to have been written before it, but oh well...)

Happy New Year!

Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I had a pretty good year in 2007. So I'm feeling optimistic that 2008 will be even better!

Yeah, I know the world didn't get any better; in fact, in many respects it seems to keep getting worse. But I remain stubbornly confident that what's bad can be improved and what's good can be sustained, and I remain steadfast in my resolve to do my bit for both.

And to stay awake and attentive throughout. It's so easy to get caught up in rushing from one task to the next and forget to take time to notice the world...or to really experience it. No more. From now on, this girl is Taking Back Her Time!

This lovely photo taken from my kayak on Galiano Island last summer will hopefully remind me what it's all about...

I'm on the World Cafe website!

Wondering what happened to me? I'm still here! Just haven't posted in awhile - the usual excuses apply. I've got some new images to post, and will do so over the holidays. But meanwhile, I just had to share the exciting news that I have a presence on The World Cafe website!

If you're not familiar with The World Cafe, I heartily recommend checking out their site - and their resources on convening World Cafe dialogues. I first became aware of TWC about 4 years ago, when I attended a World Cafe-style dialogue in Edmonton. I was hooked from the get-go and remain a big fan of the process, which I find stimulating, generative - and FUN.

Anyway, a few months ago I created a poster of World Cafe guidelines. The poster has been pretty popular and copies of it have been making the rounds, to my great pleasure. Somehow or other it made its way to the good folks at World Cafe central, who asked if they could make it available for download from their website. Needless to say, I was honoured by the request and delighted to comply! And so you too can download my poster of World Cafe guidelines from the World Cafe website, should you so desire. Enjoy!

Another day, another year...

It's a classic October day in Vancouver: everything is grey, and a steady rain has been falling all day. A perfect afternoon to stay indoors, drink tea, do laundry – and update my blog. It's also the day before my birthday – thus the reference to Another Year in the title. All the usual cliches about time apply – I can't believe how fast one year turns into the next these days. I have this theory that life is a bit like a cassette tape: it spools fairly slowly in the first half, but as you pass the middle of the roll, it unwinds at an increasingly rapid pace!

So much for melancholy philosophy. It's been a great year, in fact, and I have high hopes for the year to come. My graphic facilitation biz has taken off like a shot, and it looks like I will actually be able to make a living at this work – and a decent living, at that. You know the universe is in alignment when people are paying you to have fun!

In addition to my day work, I'm involved in aspects of the upcoming Canadian Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation (C2D2), which takes place in Vancouver from Nov. 12-14 this year. I'll be doing graphic recording at the conference (of course!), and am also coordinator for the GR team, which will include at least one and possibly 3 or 4 up and coming graphic recorders. It'll be fun to have colleagues at the wall with me; usually I'm on my own. In a perfect world there would be a veteran or two in the room as well – I still feel I have a lot to learn from those who've been in the field for a long time. But it looks like I'll be the "veteran" in the room, with my all-of-1.5 years' experience in the field. Oh well...

I've been busy with regular work as well, and have a couple of images to share here. Here's one that looks at collaborative literacy initiatives in Burnaby.

Bit of a potpourri of visual metaphors – but I couldn't make up my mind which one to go with, so I used them all! (Sounds a bit like the story of my life, actually....)
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In a couple of weeks the Internat'l Forum of Visual Practitioners is taking place in Santa Fe, and I wish I could be there. I really want to connect with my "peeps" in the field, and I've never been to Santa Fe. But I've blown my professional development budget for the year already, and with the C2D2 conference coming up hard on the heels of IFVP, there's just no way I can go this year. Next year, though, fer shure.....!!

September harvest

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth – I just got distracted by summer – or what passed for summer in these parts. I also treated myself to (gasp) an actual vacation in August, which included an intense but rewarding week doing a Theatre For Living workshop with David Diamond, followed by a blissfully peaceful week on Galiano Island, practising that great Italian pastime of dolce far niente. No, I'm not Italian – but I deeply get this concept!

And with the end of summer came the beginning of a whole bunch of new work. But first, one I did earlier in the summer, for a day-long community workshop on sustainability. The idea was to develop a Sustainability Charter for the township, engaging as many citizens as possible in the process.

More recently, here is a poster I created for executive coach Carollyne Conlinn:

Among all her other activities (creator of the Excelerator Coaching™ Program and The Great Question!™ Game, President of Full Spectrum Coaching, partner in Limitless Leadership Inc., etc. etc.), Carollyne is also on the faculty of the Executive Coaching Program at Royal Roads University, and she asked me to create a poster for her course. I started with the image Carollyne developed for The Great Question! Game of a head with a question mark and 3 spirals, and built the rest of the poster around it, based on information from her powerpoint presentation.

These are just a few examples of the work I've done since I last posted to this site. I've got a few more coming down the pike, so come back again in a couple of weeks – you may see something new!

Article on graphic facilitation

Below is a link to a good article on graphic facilitation by Peter Durand, creative director of Alphachimp Studio Inc. and the brains behind the Center for Graphic Facilitation. I've never met Peter, but he very kindly responded to my query about how to clean up my images in Photoshop, which I've used ever since. Click here to view the article.