Unplugged Art Night

For a few years, PK and I hosted a monthly gathering we creatively called "Art Night", in which a few folks came over to our house and worked on art projects. I loved the atmosphere of the evenings, where we would often have a pot of soup on the stove, and folks could share where they were with their art, and spend time working on projects. We have some extremely talented friends, and many of them have side hobbies that involve creative activities such as fly tying, paper cutting, and a variety of mixed media work. Art Night fell apart though, when it's open-invite format resulted in many folks coming over just to socialize, but not to work on projects. Now, don't get me wrong, the socializing was great- interesting people=interesting conversations=a good time - but it didn't match our original goal of developing a working group designed around sharing creative energy. But I miss Art Night, mostly because it was a way to make me focus on work and ignore the many temptations of our multi-media home.

So here is our experiment for 2009:

PK and I are hoping to unplug ourselves from our various technology for one night a week, during which we'll focus on our art projects. No reading, no internet, no T.V., just art projects. It's not an original idea; many other folks are doing unplugged nights, and I know that we'll have to work around weeks when we are travelling, and other intrusions, but for the immediate future, Friday night is Unplugged Art Night around here. Hopefully we'll eventually open the house back up to our old group from time to time, but for now, it's just the two of us and a palette of paint. Updates to follow...