Exploration #1

When I was in Barcelona over Thanksgiving, I saw a book in a gift shop entitled How to be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith. (I wanted to buy it right then and there, but I was smart enough to take a picture of it and order it on Amazon, saving me about half the price.) I got that book in the mail today, along with my awesome German word magnets, and I was like a little kid at Christmas.

Keri Smith has many books that she has written, all based around the idea of breaking the "rules" - thinking and observing in new ways, making things dirty, seeing mundane things as exciting, etc. This is my first book of hers that I have purchased, but from what I can tell, she's a simplistic genius. (FYI, you can look up this and her other books on Amazon and they have a free preview of most of them - do it. Now.)

So, the basic premise of the book is that the world all around us has a ton to offer, and that to create life, we have to create art. To create art, we must collect - thoughts, things, ideas, shapes, whatever. There are 59 Explorations in the book, along with pages in the back to write things down, use as envelopes, blah blah blah, to make it your own personal museum.

So, I have decided that it might be fun for me to share my explorations and use this blog as part of my way of documenting and creating my museum. There are no rules and no set interpretations as to what each exploration's directions means. I know it sortof defeats the purpose of encouraging you all to buy this book (or one of her others) for yourself if I'm posting this to a blog, but hopefully it will help everyone who reads it to look at things a little differently (and go buy this book for yourself).

With that being said, Exploration #1 is pretty basic, but harder than I thought it would be. The instructions were to write down ten things about where I am sitting right now that I hadn't noticed when I sat down. Use my senses, do it quickly, and don't censor.

1. The light is reflecting off the mirror
2. The clock is ticking
3. The cover of the chair didn't move (from the cats) from when I fixed it this morning.
4. There are at least six cats toys on the floor.
5. There is a draft from the window.
6. It's darker than I remember on this side of the room.
7. The window is half-way covered with snow.
8. My physioball is under the desk.
9. The light is reflecting off the top photo.
10. The sheets are not covered in cat hair.

I will likely not do all the explorations in order (they don't need to be), but I will do them all. I'm actually making it one of my New Year's resolutions to have the book finished before 2013 is up. I'm quite excited! Now, go explore!