#JournalCare Week 1 Review

By Michelle Harrell

In my first week as NAEA Monthly Mentor, I have shared how some museums and art educators are responding to COVID-19 and learned about more through your private messages. I need a year of blog posts to capture a snapshot of how our field is making a positive impact. I’ve chosen a couple amazing art educators to highlight this week such as Holly Bess Kincaid and my colleague at NCMA, Byanne Senor, who has led our mindful initiatives.

Have you been following our social media 30 day challenge? I’ve loved seeing my art ed friends have respond to our #JournalCare challenge. Let’s take a quick look at this week’s responses and look ahead to next week’s prompts. Remember you can do them in any order throughout the month but it’s always fun to see how others are responding to the same prompt.

Our week first began by altering a book for challenge and developing self-awareness through our curated series of prompts. Jodi Aker kicked off our first day with “Hack a Journal” and describes on her website how she found an old college journal that had exactly 30 pages left- just enough for this challenge. It was meant to be!

The week continued with #ArtEdPortraits, Feelings Check-in, Moments of Hope, a To-do Ta-da collage, visualizing your Vital Signs, finding imagery within scribbles, and a Time Capsule. Below are some highlights of the responses:

Dora C. May on Facebook @CulloWheeDawg

 

Anne Courie-Meulink @acmeulink on Twitter

 

Jeannette Stevenson on Facebook @jeannette.j.stevenson

 

EJ Gibbons on Facebook @ArtEdGuru

 

Instagram @Mrs.olsen.art

 

Sara Gant @theartbrit on Instagram

 

Grab a sketchbook and pick any prompt to attack during one of your next Zoom meetings when you're craving a little self care. You don’t have to do the prompts in order or share them publicly but it can be rewarding to connect to others participating.

Looking Ahead to Next Week

In the Second week, we’ll explore how art educators are nurturing their own creative self care during quarantine and hear from the student perspective from EJ Gibbons (The Art Ed Guru) and his COVID-19 Altered Book Project.

We want to hear what you’re doing for self care during COVID-19. Whether it’s through our challenge or not, we would love to hear what’s working for you. Comment below or post your ideas to Twitter or Instagram using #JournalCare. 

-MH