KERI SMITH
{please visit Keri Smith here}
Oh, my. It appears today’s feature was tailored made especially for me, Miss K. Well, I guess for you, too, if you are a rule following perfectionist who gasps at the sight of messy handwriting, torn books, and unwashed hair. (Tsk tsk, Robert Pattinson.) Award winning illustrator Keri Smith is here to break out those of us who live in the box. She promises it won’t hurt, and might actually be–wait for it– fun.
Keri Smith has been inspiring people for years with her blog, Wish Jar, a seven-year compilation of daily inspiration for her and her tens of thousands of readers. In that time, Smith has also proven what limitless, out of the box thinking can produce. The freelance illustrator has worked most recently for Random House, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Ford Motor Co., the Boston Globe, Galison/Mudpuppy Press, and Hallmark all on her own terms. When she isn’t illustrating for top tier publications, she is penning best selling books, including How to be an Explorer of the World, and Wreck This Journal, one of the inspiring books Smith is offering today to our readers. (For a complete collection of her books, click here.) Although each book has its own purpose and message, consistent throughout Smith’s work is the challenge to tear down, deconstruct, and down right destroy preconceived notions of art and process all in the name of creativity. Consider me sold–but not on the dirty hair. That’s nonnegotiable for me, Robert.
Keri Smith is giving away three books to one winner. The books are: Wreck This Journal, The Non-Planner Date Book, and This is Not a Book. In order to win, here is the question you need to answer by Wednesday, January 20, 2010:
Look around you right where you are sitting. What do you see that you did not notice when you sat down?
Please start checking the winner’s box on Wednesday, January 27, 2010 to see if you won. Good Luck!
It’s too dark in here to see, I can barely make out the letters on the keys. I hear the quiet of this hour that I rarely, and never willingly, inhabit. Aah, the sweet babe has gone back to sleep.
yellow flowers, picture of me and my grandmother, camera hanging on the wall waiting for me to pick up and capture the world
Looking around now, what do I see that I did not notice when I sat down?
An empty bag of chips, which wasn’t empty. My reflection in the mirror. The shadows cast by the moving ceiling fan. Stains.
I see torn words from magazines that have fallen down the side of my desk.
One of the clippings says “find your balance” and it has a leaf on it.
Window curtains slowly moving in a very subtle brezze.
The sun, blinding me with its brillance, and making it impossible for me to work. Let me bask in its rays, BREATHE, and enjoy the moment. Or go back to sleep since I was up way too early working?
A stamp marked “long”, my scribbling paper has no more space and people walking passed my desky-office thingy
The silence of being in a room with three walls of windows and snow falling hard outside them.
A lone paperclip. Disregarded and left without a paper to clip. sad.
A Christmas card from friends that we haven’t seen in many years. I miss their daughter in the picture. She passed away and my heart aches when I think of the unthinkable. What if?
A calender that has fallen down behind my monitor. For every day it has someone holding up a number and smiling, smiling.
And chap stick on the floor, that I thought I lost ages ago. Oh, the things we find when we look!
A tiny engraving on the dor”s hinge.
and I’m glad to have a small chance.
A child’s play broom. A strand of hair on the desk. A green, neatly sharpened pencil, an entire room behind me, the window behind me and beyond that the neighbor’s dusty pink siding.
A bobble head doll of one of the Piston’s basketball players. Weird.
There are a lot of things in my field of vision right now, but the thing that I didn’t notice at first is the little bag of pumpkin seeds on the table in front of me. Yum!
I see years of untold stories. Every stain, every crack, every dent, is an adventure, never to be disclosed. I can see it breathe, silently trying to communicate it’s long ago journey from a far away land of peacocks and elephants and tapped-tin designs. Bolts and latches on everything. This was made for sea travel.
The trees have stopped dancing; the wind storm has passed.
I noticed that my calender hangin on the wall at my desk is full of plans, dates and things to do. I notice how cluttered my desk really is and how I can’t wait to go home so I can relax in peace and quiet : )
I’m noticing I have a lot of empty soda cans and snacks near me. Uh…what happened to my New Year’s resolution to eat healthier?
I noticed that my postcard wall is having problems with gravity and all the cards are bit droopy. Not cool, gravity, not cool!
suddenly, my inner eye reflecting to me a picture my camera can never take: an imaginary world.
Amelia.x
I notice that flowers that remain from the bouquet I got for Christmas are still looking very nice: one of them (the one they call: the florists’ bad luck) is making very nice green seeds in the middle…
the tiny red rose bud (dried) sitting on the amethyst amongst the crystals scattered across my desk altar. Who put that there? its intriguing.
I am sitting at my desk. The inflatable fishes that we hanged from the roof are not in a good shape. They need some fresh air. I also need to water my monster plant (5 meters long and still growing). There is still a long way to go before it takes over the whole office. Oh, there are two new unicorn ponies on the PC monitor on the next desk. Blue and yellow.
The bric a brack display I created on top of the upper kitchen cabinet. My apt is so small I can see all three rooms from the love seat I’m sitting upon!
Crinkled bags in a strange looking pile, surrounded by a scattered array of DVDs that fell from a fail pile that I knocked over when I decided to sit down.
organized clutter. it feels poetic. hazardous stacks of words that someone wanted the world to know.
It seems as though someone has wiped thier nose on the wall of this computer lab cubicle.
college is officially awesome.
The picture above me is slightly crooked. Looking at it makes me feel like I’m being drawn inside. I can hear the low hum of cars outside, which I rarely acknowledge because I am so use to the absence of silence. I can also hear the chatter upstairs as my mom reads to my little sister… and wow there are a lot of important looking documents in front of me.
I see my brother’s Latin flash cards. They are flipped to the word “specto”, which, coincidentally, means “to look”.
A blank disc labeled “Tahiti” with my father’s handwriting. Must be from the trip he and my mama took without me! WORST QUESTION EVER. And I just finished reconfiguring my budget. Thanks a lot. :)
I notice the unique shadows cast by my bamboo on my desk: I hope it brings me luck like it did this past semester :) :)
my aloe plant, tucked in a dim corner, seems to have regained the vigor it lost when it was living on a sunny kitchen windowsill. sometimes neglect is rewarded.
Hmmmm….let’see…..oh, the spiderweb in the eye socket of the steer skull that hangs on the wall above my monitor…
My toes
I did not notice the smell of the air.
It smells nice.
I noticed that I have no fewer than eight calendars on my desk. One that I designed for my company as their holiday card and one that came from the printer we used as an example of the paper stock we were choosing (and because one of our agents was being all squirrelly about whether the printing would look good). I have a stack (counted as one calendar, because they are all the same) dropped off by a home inspector who would like us to use their services, accompanied by a myriad of pens and brochures. (One thing about working in a real estate office, you will never want for pens or random pads of paper with someone else’s business name on them.) The fourth one is an itty-bitty easel calendar from Kitty Rogers that I actually won from The Bright Side. Fifth is my new 16-month calendar featuring photographs of penguins, a present from my husband’s coworker who knows I have a bit of a thing for penguins and is very kind. Sixth is another calendar from our printer, featuring their fine-art printing capabilities. Seventh is a printout of a calendar shared to fans of an adorable local children’s store and designed by Lisa Samartino Atelier. And finally, I have a 2009 calendar designed by Ted Naos, a wonderful die-cut artist and former architecture professor of mine. The calendar features many pages in different colors with die cuts, which you can rearrange and change the pattern that is showing through. I just couldn’t get myself to get rid of it at the change of the year, so I am keeping it on my desk and rearranging the pages to suit my whims. I don’t really NEED this many calendars, but boy do I love them!
I see a spot on the ceiling in the far corner of my office, over my not-so-loved office-mate’s desk, that has a water-stain. But it is an unusual water-stain. One that has been there for a long time. One that has caused the paint and a portion of the sheet rock to deteriorate. In doing this, some of the paint and dust has dripped down onto the unpainted cinder block wall of this building built in the 1970’s (It feels more like an uninspired, utilitarian bomb shelter on the best of days). These ceiling remnants have, in fact, nearly dripped 8 feet down to the floor in several streams, almost as if they are looking for a new life or purpose. The building is making a statement. It will not go out blandly. It will be beautiful and interesting and full of secrets when it is finally renovated or torn down.
But today the sun in shining through the windows for the first time in about 2 weeks and it is making this spot of deterioration look like the snow you would see in an impressionist’s painting. The edges of the stain have even become bumpy and raised and I’m actually fighting the urge to climb up on my office-mate’s desk and touch it. It seems like it would be lovely to feel. It will be even more lovely to photograph…..
A completely scribbled over, dog-eared notebook. And a quite big pile of clothes. I love the damn thing dearly – it makes the far too big bed smaller without moving or snoring. Perfect. ;)
five rolls of coins on the bookshelf, sitting in front of my 7th grade plant cell/animal cell sculptures. they’re waiting to be taken to the bank.
Stainless steel scissors that came from my grandfather’s house many years ago; a Pink Pearl eraser, rubbed down and gray around the edges; sun streaks on a stack of discarded drawings by the window; miscellaneous computer cords in a tangle under the desk; a half-finished birthday card for my almost one-year-old nephew; empty cream-colored mug stained around the edges with this morning’s coffee; a red ink pen; a pencil; shadows pulling the legs of the desk across the carpet.
Wood! I guess I always forget that there is a desk under there somewhere!! I am now noticing tiny wonderful dark knots in the wood, So pretty really when you stop to consider the form instead of just the function.
One more paperwhite bulb has bloomed!
I’m in a new apartment so everything is a bit new. I see two pipes comming up from the wooden floor and disapearing in the wall. Like two “L” upsidedown.
I see my 12 year old brother and I see the innocence in his eyes when he asks me if he can use my paint set. We usually fight a lot but don’t have very serious fights but still.
So today, as a first step, I said, “Yes! Sure you can use my paint set! Go have fun!”
And he is happy.
Sometimes, we overlook what we have around us. We should be happy for everything that we have. :)
I noticed the time.
I’ve noticed that I’ve probably been here for hours.
I noticed that I’m sitting in a different place reading blogs and finding great ones .I’m also watching my husband work in my kitchen and appreciating him for the things he does. Sometimes I think we just take for granted what our spouses, friends and families do for us. We all should stop and look around at the moment in time.
A baby blue Sharpie marker under a travel pillow.
Right now I’m actually laying in bed and as I scanned my room, my eyes fell on my desk. (Don’t ask why there’s a travel pillow on my desk, I couldn’t tell you. There just is.) Although everything seemed normal and familiar to me, when I took a closer look I saw the marker. Interesting indeed.
the shadows from the one light in the room. they’re on my papers, my couch, my keyboard. it’s a weird sort of light and shadow.
I just noticed that one of my cats threw up a hairball next to my desk. Eeew!