This year in January, Ali, Nancy, Jackie (all Seattle residents) and I (way across the ocean in HI) did Wendy Mac's Draw Together challenge. It was just ten minutes of drawing every day for one month. We exchanged drawings with each other via text and created a little place of joy and caring attention between us. It was a simple activity, but it meant so much to me. Here are a few of my favorite sketchbook pages from this time:

A while later, Ali edited our group’s back and forth text messages, composed a poem synthesizing our project, and submitted the resulting hybrid literary piece called “Buddha’s Hand” to About Place Journal in an issue called “Careful/Care-Full Collaboration.” For me, it’s a surprising and very cool thing to be published in a literary journal! It’s a quick read if you’re interested.

The eponymous Buddha's Hand was kind of a running joke throughout this project. One of the early assignments in the Draw Together challenge was to pick an object and draw it in different ways over the course of a few days. I chose to draw this Buddha’s Hand citron that my mom brought home from the market and couldn’t figure out how to use in her cooking. Interested in watching the decay, I kept the fruit through the month of January and drew it every few days…and continued checking in on it every so often…and five months later it's petrified and brown, but we’re still drawing! I doubt the dried fruit will change much from now on, but what might change is HOW I see it. Keep scrolling thru the images - the last one is my favorite!