We finished up the first, but not the last blogging workshop, one of the better ideas I have had about teaching. Pamela Rickenbach got her compelling new blog up and running and had more than 2,000 hits by lunchtime Sunday. She was up half the night blogging, she is a natural.
Pamela means for her blog, yacu-colorino.org to be a place of advocacy for the horses, who are in great danger in America now, and also as a journal of her own remarkable and very moving and inspiring life. Her thoughts on the horses and their power to change us mesmerized all of us today.
More good news. Ken Norman, our friend and farrier, and his wife Eli Anita-Norman, have decided to collaborate on their own blog, they both came to the workshop today to get some ideas and listen to the discussion. That will be a great blog, Ken has a lot of important things to say, and has learned so much about horses and the lives of animals. He is a resolute supporter of peole who live and work with animals, he is a ferocious advocate for horses. Can’t wait to work with him on his new blog.
Ed and Carol Gulley, our friends and dairy farmers, are also planning to start their own blog, Ed will write about his art and he and Carol will write about the lives of farmers. They couldn’t make it today, but are drawn to the idea of their own space online, their own reflections.
The people attending the blog had some exciting plans to show their art, their ideas, their creativity with new blogs, I felt the room caught fire. We all helped one another, listened to one another, learned a lot. This weekend has altered some of my ideas on teaching, I want to teach a small group of committed people, and rather than just meet once, I will stay with them until their complete their creative visions and are happy with them. A kind of living, evolving class.
This group will be meeting again after the holidays and as often as they wish until they accomplish what they set out to do. And their plans are ambitious and exciting. I think a good teacher must get to know his students in order to help them. The shy Beth Heffern is getting focused on her rich and evolving photography, Sandy Van Dyk wants a blog on color and healing, Carol Conklin, the brilliant batik artist, wants to share and show and sell more of her art online, she is exhausted from rushing from one craft show to another, Rachel Barlow wants to balance her writing and sketching, Jackie Thorne wants to liberate her very creative impulses and share her poetry, writing and photography.
So it went. A lot of ships setting sail. The blog is a powerful new tool for people seeking to find their voice and free the powerful spirits that live inside all of us. We don’t need corporate approval to share our work and ideas, we can do it ourselves, and for free.