Graphic recording can make even the dryest, dullest presentation fun and creative. (Not that I know this from personal experience... all my clients are fun!) So now imagine the energy in the room if you've got a graphic recorder working at what's possibly the most colourful, funky venue in town, with a roomful of passionate, motivated, creative thinkers. What you end up with is an exciting workshop, a lot of great ideas, and all sorts of inspiration for a brightly-hued visual record of the evening's discussion. Yes, I'm talking about my evening yesterday, when I had the chance to draw some pictures for Calgary Reads, a local early literacy initiative located in the Beltline.

Calgary Reads' staff and board members are spending this weekend dreaming up a plan to foster a reading movement in Calgary. At their workshop last night we listened to three inspiring speakers (Calgary Reads' own Duna Bayley; MRU's Roberta Lexier; and the ever-insightful Cesar Cala of the United Way). I'll be excited to see what they come up with this weekend and what they'll come up with next.

Watch this space for some more (close-up) pictures of the graphic recording I made for Calgary Reads last night. And I think I'll have to go back and take some pictures of their super-colourful office space, which features the bright and bold artwork of Calgary mural artist Dean Stanton. It deserves a post of its own!

In case you didn't already know, I'm expecting a baby. Since I did this once before, I think I've got some idea of how much time I'll have for decadent, frivolous free-time stuff after this baby arrives (i.e. not much). So I signed up for something frivolous, last weekend... just because I still could.

I went to a local event called "When Words Collide - A Festival for Readers & Writers." It's the third time this unique annual festival has taken place. I've been to a few academic conferences about literature (and here are some sketchnotes from one such), but this multi-layered event combined academic panels, informal group discussions, one-on-one sessions with experts in various fields (writers, publishers) and a hodgepodge of other writerly stuff. So it was pretty accessible to anyone (I even saw some school-aged kids), while also offering specialized info sessions for professionals.

The festival isn't about mainstream literature, though. When Words Collide features "genre fiction": sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, YA (Young Adult), and any number of sub-genres I probably haven't heard of (I did hear some folks talking about "Zombie Erotica"... that's a genre?!!). If you've been reading this blog, you might know I am a fan of YA fiction (in fact, that's pretty much all I read). But I like those other genres too (well, the first ones I mentioned - probably not the zombie erotica, I have to confess).

I did have cause to reflect, while I was there, that it's a funny thing that YA fiction gets lumped in with these other categories - in much the same way indie comics get lumped in with superheroes, TV show fans, toy collectors, and cosplayers, at the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo. Drawing sketchnotes about this weekend's event, I kind of felt the same way I did at the Expo earlier this year - kind of on the periphery of a bunch of stuff I don't know anything about.

But maybe that's part of the reason for putting all those things under one umbrella. You come looking for one thing, and you end up learning about another. Here's what I took away.

And now I have a confession to make. I couldn't resist putting a little piece of my own writing onto this anonymous slush pile. There's this story I always write when I have time (which is hardly ever. Even writing this blog is ridiculous, considering the stuff I should be getting done RIGHT NOW). So it's pretty slow going - I've been working on it for, oh, twenty years or so. Anyway, it's in no shape to send to a publisher, but I did think it was in good enough shape for an anonymous critique such as this one. (And luckily, it seemed to go over OK.)

But here's the funny part. Until I came to this panel, I had completely forgotten that I had, once before, submitted a piece of this same old story to a panel of critics. This would have been in 1997. I had just moved back to Calgary. A friend of mine told me about this group called the Imaginative Fiction Writers' Association. I had just finished taking a senior Creative Writing course at the University of Toronto (in which, of course, I worked on this same story... it's the only one I got!) - and I was feeling kinda "writerly" - so I submitted an excerpt from it to this group for a critique.

After that, though, I started painting and writing indie comics instead of writing fiction, and I haven't really been moving in Calgary's Imaginative Fiction Writers scene (in fact, I only just this moment looked them up and found out that they still exist!). But when I came to this panel I suddenly thought, "Hey... I bet these same folks, who are now local superstars and who are organizing this conference, were all part of that old IFWA group from fifteen years ago!" And I was right.

Here's what I dug out of my old story box of files when I got home (yes, I keep all that story-related stuff in one big box... pretty organized, no?):

And just as I expected. There they were - these same folks! Still driving Calgary's writing community after all this time. Now there's commitment to both craft and community.

Besides the critiques written by Randy McCharles, Hayden Trenholm, and Tony King, some of the other ones in my box were Al Onia, Liz Westbrook, and Sandy Fitzpatrick - names I also glimpsed here at When Words Collide 2013.

I should add that the story I submitted all those years ago was entirely forgettable... and I kind of was, myself, too. I'm much more interesting now. And those fifteen years of self-editing have really paid off, judging by the more recent comments I received! Ha, ha.

Ok - thanks for indulging me in that lengthy digression. Now let's dive back into the festival.

Here are some notes from an entertaining group discussion with author Jefferson Smith about names. Everybody knows that sci-fi and fantasy stories are full of weird made-up names. But there's a method to the madness...

Personally, I give first prize for made-up names in literature to Ursula K. LeGuin. Not because her names are always the best (it's hard to beat Tolkien at that) - but because she does it again with every new book: each imagined world filled with convincing names for people, geography, technology, you name it.

By the way, I should add that Ursula K. LeGuin, who is 83, is the last surviving one of my four favourite authors. The others all passed away not too long ago: Diana Wynne Jones (died in 2011, aged 76); Margaret Mahy (died in 2012, aged 76); E. L. Konigsburg (died in 2013, aged 83). Hang in there, Ursula!

And now you should take a look at Linda Kupecek's website. The fact that I only ever read YA fiction is my excuse for not knowing more (if anything) about local writers who write anything else. So I am always excited to find out more. Meanwhile, I also see that Linda's site features a blog, in which she also wrote about her weekend at When Words Collide (she's clearly much quicker on the draw than I am - but then, she didn't have to upload all these cumbersome images). From the sound of her review, it sounds like she had a great time!

For fans of speculative fiction in Alberta, here's "On Spec". And for fans of virtual reality, here's the "Oculus".

Couldn't find the banjo player online, though.

Something (someone) else I couldn't find - online OR at When Worlds Collide: Vance Neudorf! Vance, where are you? Ok, so Vance has no idea who I am. But I know who he is, because in about 2009 I bought his self-published, locally-set fantasy novel "The Hammer" at the now-seemingly-defunct Calgary Children's Book Fair & Conference. Since I was right in the throes of new parenthood back then, I didn't get around to writing about how promising I thought The Hammer was at the time - though I did mention it recently in this post about novels set in Calgary. Anyway, Vance, I hope you haven't given up - I thought your book was great and I thought it should have been at this event!

Maybe Vance just takes fifteen years to complete his writing projects - like me. OK, so back to the festival again. This next panel was about children's literature - a bit more up my alley.

Here's Gordon Lightfoot's Canadian Railroad Trilogy. (It's a song - not a book!) And here's Ian Wallace, who drew the pictures for this particular book featuring the song.

Ginger Mullen's retelling of the story of the prince who married the tortoise reminded me of another tale - The Flying Carpet, illustrated by the three-time-Caldecott-Medal-winning Marcia Brown. I have a lot of books from my childhood, but this one has been lost along the way. However, I can remember it pretty vividly and a quick Google search yielded this brief blog post about it - featuring the fabulous comment that the illustrations "are like what you’d get if Marc Chagall were an Arab." Um, awesome - and accurate!

Ginger Mullen also mentioned that countless fairy tales feature the motif of a human who marries an animal. This reminded me of another children's book that tells just such a story: Errol Le Cain's The White Cat (which, I'm amazed to see, seems to be out of print). Luckily, I still have it:

Ok, so, first: with regards to Jessica Bay's talk about books that cross genre boundaries: even though I wasn't familiar with the books she discussed, I love her subject. And so, in aid of that, here's Ursula K. LeGuin again, with a quote to that effect (from an essay I wrote a long time ago, back when I actually had to type my text, print it out, cut it out, glue it on to the page I'd illustrated, and then photocopy that. Luckily, Photoshop has changed my life since then).

And now to Paula Johanson. To judge by her talk, she likes Ursula K. LeGuin, too (well... who doesn't?).

I can blame my aforementioned exclusive reading of YA books for my utter ignorance of The Curve of Time. Sounds pretty interesting... even if the book was lousy (which it sounds like it's definitely not), the premise sounds great: the true story of a single mother in the depression who takes her five children on boat trips along Canada's northwest coast... and then writes a book about it? Why hasn't every Canadian heard of this cool mama?

Hey, I took my son camping this year and I lasted one night... sleeping in a tent while pregnant did not agree with me. I felt kind of guilty to be such a wimp, and now I feel even more guilty (and wimpy). But hey, I'm making up for my lack of outdoorsy-ness in other ways, right? Like: just ask me to rattle off the names of a whole lot of Canadian YA books about outdoorsy stuff! I can do that with my eyes closed! Don't even get me started!

Here's where you can find out about The Centennial Reader - an intriguing-sounding initiative.

Actually, here's something I just read on its "Call for Submissions" page: a description of the project that sounds very much like something that might be a good description for When Words Collide, too:

The Centennial Reader straddles both worlds: the academic world and the popular publication world. Submissions should therefore apply intellectual thought to topical concerns, offered in an entertaining and popular way.

And now - the last panel (for me). I couldn't attend on Sunday, by the way, so all these sketchnotes are just from Friday & Saturday's talks.

I was looking forward to this discussion about books set in Canada, but although it was fun, I think it only really scratched the surface of a topic I've given probably way too much thought to over the past ten years or so. If you feel like it, you can read this blog post I wrote about it not too long ago, in response to a post by Amy Jo Espetveidt of awesome local blog Calgary is Awesome, who was looking for books set in Calgary.

I actually bought a book at When Words Collide - a new YA book (something I rarely do. I like to buy second-hand books. And I like to wait until they've been out for a while, so I know they're more likely to be on the shelf because they're good, and not just because they're being well-hyped).

I know - I should have gone to the "What's new in YA fiction?" panel!! It was on the top of my list! But it was also at 10 AM on Saturday morning and I had to help out at the (amazing) Inglewood Night Market the night before... so it didn't happen. (Check it out, folks - there's only one more Night Market this year, and it's on Friday, September 13th.)

Anyway - I missed the panel and had to take a guess with regards to something good in new YA fiction. I chose a book called Run like Jaeger from Owl's Nest Books. I chose it for two reasons: one, it was by an Alberta author (Karen Bass - who also worked as a librarian, like my favourite author Margaret Mahy). And two, it looked like it was set in Germany. I used to go there a lot, but I haven't been there in almost two years, so I figured this story might keep me in the loop a bit. Then, after I bought it, I realized it was about an exchange student from Calgary who spends a year in Germany! Well. I did that too, a really long time ago.

Funnily enough, even though the action of the story takes place in Germany, the protagonist's "real" home is in Calgary, so that's ALMOST one for Calgary is Awesome's list of  books set in Calgary.

Almost.

Thanks, When Words Collide, for a great weekend... it's nothing short of inspiring to glimpse what's going on out there in the world of local literature! Now I'll be retreating to my neighbourhood again for a while. But not too long. I promise it won't take me another fifteen years to finish that neverending story.

I had the chance to attend Calgary Arts Development's "Report to the Community" yesterday.
It was fun!

A talk is always more fun if you draw while you're listening. Here are some sketchnotes from the event. The takeaway message: See you at City Hall, 9:30 AM on June 5th! #yycArtsPlan!

Read the rest of the inspiring, powerful and funny monologue, "Artists are Dangerous."

But here's what I really wanted to show you. A couple of weeks back I had the opportunity to draw some pictures at a really inspiring series of talks hosted by Calgary Economic Development. They've been holding a series of events called "Soul of the City", each of which has been about a different aspect of what makes Calgary tick. (I drew some pictures at a previous Soul of the City event, which you can see here.)

This one was about local food and featured talks by local chefs John Jackson and Connie De Sousa of CharCut fame; Luke Kimmel of the Leaf Ninjas (yay Ramsay!); Eliese Watson, Calgary's best-loved beekeeper; and Ron Finley, who came all the way from Los Angeles to tell us about how he'd started a local movement in his own hometown growing healthy food on boulevards and in empty lots. (He's got a pretty inspiring TED Talk on this subject, which you can see here.)

This evening ended with the chance to taste some of Calgary's local fare at the SAIT Culinary Campus - a rather delicious spot to visit.

Hope you enjoy the pictures - they were extremely fun to draw!

It's Bob Dylan's birthday!

Since I've been doing a lot of graphic recording, I've been thinking a lot about how to draw images that capture words and concepts. And I was reminded of how I'd done something like this a long time ago (maybe around 1999?) as part of a Bob Dylan get-together.

But first I should explain what I mean by a "Bob Dylan get-together."

I used to follow Dylan's tour around a bit, and in the course of these adventures I became friends with other fans whom I'd meet again and again at different shows around the world. The main appeal of all this travelling was, of course, the amazing performances by Mr. Dylan, but the comraderie of all these diverse, yet like-minded fellow fans, quickly became a secondary attraction.

To start off, here are some comics from the Drawing Book from a few of those fun gatherings.

You get the idea. So, to make a long story short, there was one time when a bunch of friends had decided to get together after a show and play some kind of Bob Dylan trivia game. I couldn't make it to this event, so I thought I'd send along a contribution.

I listened to the song "Where Are You Tonight?" from Dylan's 1978 album Street Legal (for reasons too mysterious to understand, this has always been my favourite Dylan album). "Where Are You Tonight?" reads like a long list of briefly stated scenarios. I drew pictures - one for each line of the song. Then I cut out all the pictures and mixed them up, and sent them off to my friends in whatever city they were in (I can't remember). The idea was that they had to guess which picture matched which line from the song. Bonus points if they could do it without looking at the lyrics (i.e. if they actually knew the song that well!).

So, for Bob Dylan's birthday, all these years later, here's the same game for you. The song lyrics are at the end of all the pictures. Hint: The first panel just serves as the title of the song, and the next two panels actually correspond with the first two lines of the song. After that they are all mixed up.

Ok, I know that no one but the real Dylan fanatics would actually feel like undertaking this. So for the rest of you, it can just serve as a reflection on how graphic recording works - for example, it's easy enough to draw "There's a long distance train rolling through the rain," but how easy is it to draw something like "Strong men belittled by doubt" or "Horseplay and disease are killing me by degrees while the law looks the other way" ?? Well, you get the idea. I think my favourite picture in this little gallery is the one that depicts "There’s a babe in the arms of a woman in a rage" - or maybe, "If you don’t believe there’s a price for this sweet paradise / Remind me to show you the scars" (what a line!).

Happy birthday Bob!

-sam.

P.S. My friend Margery & I are featured shaking hands in the panel that depicts the line, "In that last hour of need, we entirely agreed / Sacrifice was the code of the road."  - That pretty much summed up our eventual strategy when it came to long unpredictable ambitious crazy Dylan tour expeditions!

P.P.S. I ALWAYS think of this song when I walk along Elizabeth Street in Ramsay.

P.P.P.S. If you'd like to listen to the song while you peruse these enigmatic scrawlings, it's here.

Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)

There’s a long-distance train rolling through the rain
Tears on the letter I write
There’s a woman I long to touch and I miss her so much
But she’s drifting like a satellite

There’s a neon light ablaze in this green smoky haze
Laughter down on Elizabeth Street
And a lonesome bell tone in that valley of stone
Where she bathed in a stream of pure heat

Her father would emphasize you got to be more than streetwise
But he practiced what he preached from the heart
A full-blooded Cherokee, he predicted to me
The time and the place that the trouble would start

There’s a babe in the arms of a woman in a rage
And a longtime golden-haired stripper onstage
And she winds back the clock and she turns back the page
Of a book that no one can write
Oh, where are you tonight?

The truth was obscure, too profound and too pure
To live it you have to explode
In that last hour of need, we entirely agreed
Sacrifice was the code of the road

I left town at dawn, with Marcel and St. John
Strong men belittled by doubt
I couldn’t tell her what my private thoughts were
But she had some way of finding them out

He took dead-center aim but he missed just the same
She was waiting, putting flowers on the shelf
She could feel my despair as I climbed up her hair
And discovered her invisible self

There’s a lion in the road, there’s a demon escaped
There’s a million dreams gone, there’s a landscape being raped
As her beauty fades and I watch her undrape
I won’t but then again, maybe I might
Oh, if I could just find you tonight

I fought with my twin, that enemy within
’Til both of us fell by the way
Horseplay and disease is killing me by degrees
While the law looks the other way

Your partners in crime hit me up for nickels and dimes
The guy you were lovin’ couldn’t stay clean
It felt outa place, my foot in his face
But he should-a stayed where his money was green

I bit into the root of forbidden fruit
With the juice running down my leg
Then I dealt with your boss, who’d never known about loss
And who always was too proud to beg

There’s a white diamond gloom on the dark side of this room
And a pathway that leads up to the stars
If you don’t believe there’s a price for this sweet paradise
Remind me to show you the scars

There’s a new day at dawn and I’ve finally arrived
If I’m there in the morning, baby, you’ll know I’ve survived
I can’t believe it, I can’t believe I’m alive
But without you it just doesn’t seem right
Oh, where are you tonight?
...

Well, hope you don't think I'm too crazy. Like I keep saying, I had a lot more free time back in those days. Meanwhile, here are some post-show parting words:

P.P.P.P.S. This picture was signed by the panelists. The one in the middle is Greil Marcus. Who were the others, I wonder?

This morning I had a pretty fun and unusual experience - contributing a graphic recording to a meeting of the City of Calgary's Priorities & Finance Committee down at City Hall.

But before I tell you about that, I just have to reminisce about another time I drew pictures at a political gathering. I think it must have been in 1996, I had occasion to attend a session of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in Edmonton. I was sitting up high in some gallery or other and... because it's what I always do... I drew a picture. Of the Speaker of the House. I think the Speaker at the time was Stanley Schumacher. Here it is.

Well, I don't remember all the details, but suffice to say, someone looked up and noticed me doing this dastardly deed, and pretty soon some security guards came up to ask me to stop drawing. The sketch was confiscated! I was (politely) asked to leave! Pages were passing notes all around the floor as MLAs shook their heads in dismay (and surprise). Apparently, it was against the law to draw in the "Leg" (that's short for Legislature, and it's pronounced "Lej").

Except, as it turned out, it wasn't against the law - not quite. As I learned later, every provincial government in Canada had such a rule: no drawing during sessions. So the Alberta Legislature was quick to put the sketching to a stop. However, when someone checked later, it was discovered that this wasn't actually law in Alberta. Apparently this had never come up before (hadn't any gallery-sitter like myself ever gotten bored and started doodling??), and the law had never officially been passed. I was told that, after this, the law would be passed forthwith. So, thanks to this picture, a nice new Albertan law. I wonder if that actually did happen. I didn't stick around to find out. But I did get my sketch back (along with some gracious apologies when everyone realized I was just a bored art student and not some sneaky reporter trying to capture the hidden details of the Assembly's inner workings).

That was a far cry from today's committee meeting at the Calgary City Hall, during which anyone and everyone in attendance was free to tweet, photograph, message, and otherwise create artistic recordings of the proceedings.

Which brings me to the graphic recording stuff.

The Priorities and Finance Committee is chaired by the Mayor and includes six Aldermen (although any aldermen can sit in). The public and the media can attend the meetings, but aren't allotted time to speak or ask questions (although they can be invited to speak). To find out the official list of functions performed by the committee, you can take a look here. Today, however, I was there to help out a City Administration team called the Engage Resource Unit. These folks have been working for quite a long time on the issue of civic engagement: in other words (theirs), they’ve been asking how they can make it easier for Calgarians to provide input into City decisions. Their project was up for review, and so they were among the people presenting their reports to the Committee today. My job was to draw pictures during their presentation and the subsequent Q & A.

Why would the Engage Review team think of doing something like this? Partly just to illustrate the fact that there are multiple ways to present information, and that sometimes a creative approach can make information more accessible to a wider audience. (I did some graphic recording for them at their recent event Continue the Conversation, of which you can see a very nice little video here.)

Good, in theory. I'm not sure how well I was able to illustrate the lightning-paced presentation and discussion that ensued  - with a lot of content to capture, there wasn't as much time to draw. I think I recorded the question-and-answer part well enough, but I'm not sure how clearly I was able to convey the content of the presentation. My other challenge was not knowing how to pace myself - was this going to be a ten-minute rubber stamp, or a day-long debate? I'm actually not sure how long I drew - over half an hour, but under an hour, I think. Here's the picture that was there when the discussion ceased (and the initiative approved - congrats, Engage Review!):

I didn't stay for the whole meeting, but did enjoy getting to be there for the approval of a few other awesome-sounding agenda items, such as the Plain Language Policy, summed up here by the Herald's Jason Markusoff (who was also present, taking more organized notes than mine); and the Calgary Poverty Reduction Initiative, which happily enjoyed the Committee's overwhelming support, and which Mr. Markusoff wrote about here.

Luckily, I had the chance afterwards to colour things in, tidy things up, and try to make the whole mad scramble a bit more visually appealing. Here are some details:

Well, it was an experiment, and I'm honoured that the City administrators and Council invited me to contribute to their process. It might turn out that civic committee meetings don't make for the ideal graphic recording conditions, but I do feel pretty excited about the possibilities of merging a traditionally dry, bureaucratic organization like a civic administration with an emerging and essentially weird practice like graphic recording. I guess that might say something about this administration. I think the fact that Mayor Nenshi conducted the entire meeting while wearing a St. John's, NB team jersey just speaks to that. (And by the way... what team was it? What sport??? I was too busy writing everything down, to even notice!)

This story starts a few months ago when I had the opportunity to be part of what may have been Calgary's first "graphic jam," hosted at the Calgary Public Building - a hidden gem of a heritage building right in the heart of Calgary's downtown - complete with awesome vintage elevators (and real-life, contemporary elevator operators. By the way, do you know of any other such still-in-action elevators anywhere? Let me know! I haven't seen anything like these since that elevator scene in the Hudsucker Proxy).

Anyway, this photo comes from a little piece featured in Metro enticing Calgarians to come to a more recent (and just as cool) event at the Calgary Public Building: "Continue the Conversation." To find out more about the event, take a look at this very fun-to-read online invitation (which probably won't stay online forever - read it while you can!). This event was designed for citizens to suggest and discuss ideas for public engagement, as part of an ongoing process called the Engage Review. But this was more than just a conversation with words: Calgarians were invited to come and write their ideas on the walls!

The Calgary Public Building has a few specially-coated walls which you can draw on (and - later - wipe clean). And that's where I came into this fun evening: City of Calgary Engagement Consultant Tracy McCabe invited me to do some graphic recording. So we started with a "Welcome Wall" to inform participants about the evening's agenda (only partially finished in this particular shot):

Some close-ups from the Welcome Wall (complete with different coloured walls, thanks to my attempts to take some intermittant non-flash pictures and avoid the glare):

Just before the event got underway, I was finishing the "Welcome Wall" and writing down the info about wifi access. I noticed someone behind me who was taking a picture of the wall. He said he'd tweet the picture. So I thought he'd be a good person to draw in my wifi illustration. He took a picture of my illustration to use for his Twitter icon. Later on I discovered that this gentleman was Brian Pincott! Well, I just didn't recognize him. At least I can say I'd recognize my own City Council member. (And he might even recognize me!)

This part of the Welcome Wall explained my job for the evening: to listen to comments and conversations and draw what was being said!

There was a photographer snapping pictures throughout the event, too - so if I see any of his live-action graphic recording shots, I'll be sure to put some up here sometime!

For now, take a look below to see the enormous group wall-writing collaboration that transpired. Just in case you ever thought there was anything dry, boring or stodgy about a municipal engagement campaign... think again!

By the way, attendees were also given maps of the event space. I drew the map too, and here it is (yes, kinda busy, I know... but so was the evening!)

Kiran Somanchi got the evening off to a great start by suggesting, not only a public engagement idea that I could draw on the wall, but an idea that really got people excited (to judge by all the enthusiast comments that amassed around the picture): setting up a public "Speaker's Corner" somewhere in Calgary.

As I was drawing this, I heard someone behind me say, "It can't just be online!" That turned out to be another civic engagement pro - Nancy Close of 3 Things for Calgary.

After that, I just started to draw whatever I heard people say.

One thing I happened to hear someone say, when people began to notice what was happening: "Speak and ye shall be recorded!" Indeed. Luckily, everyone was putting out such interesting ideas, that this was all very fun to do.

Probably the most fun part for me as a graphic recorder was trying to capture a discussion about how to change and improve the City of Calgary's website. With many people involved, and three sides of a pillar to draw on, this was a fast-paced real-time capture of a discussion that yielded quite a few excellent suggestions. (Feel free to take a look at the website: www.calgary.ca. What do you think? And can you recognize all those slideshowing images on the landing page? Personally, I have no idea about that modern-lookin' building in the water. Looks cool though.)

Needless to say, I think it is great that the City of Calgary is using such a fun and interactive method as graphic recording to engage citizens. Quite a few people mentioned to me that the City also just released a stop-motion video animation (is that what these things are called?) to let people know what the civic IT department is up to (I just took a look at it, and so can you). So perhaps this kind of illustrated information is part of a hot new trend!

Well - that was fun, and now I'm exhausted. It'll be cool to see what the Engagement team does with all this good feedback, and how it intersects with other innovative civic initiatives that seem to be popping up everywhere these days (CivicCamp - imagineCALGARY - which has a very nice website - Cultural Transformation - just to name a few). Are you creative types looking for a fun way to stay engaged with the Calgary scene now that Calgary 2012 is drawing to a close (as we speak, I think)? Look no further.

I've had this cool group of local visionaries on my radar since 2007 or 8, when I first heard of "Plan It Calgary." That visioning process has evolved into the imagineCALGARY of today (follow that link to see their lovely new website). But I've always been watching from the sidelines since I was (first) usually out of town, and (later) always at home being a new mom.

Well, now that my son is four years old, I can actually find a little free time now and then to get out and participate in these exciting conversations. I was really looking forward to attending my first imagineCALGARY event this morning. I imagined myself talking with grown-ups about far-sighted, complicated visions, and most of all, enjoying a change of pace from my usual life at home building train tracks with my four-year-old. It's a bit ironic that one of the big selling points of this particular event was that we'd get to play with Lego. Honestly, if I never see any Lego again, I'd probably be ok with that. At least it wasn't train tracks!

Joking aside (the Lego was fun), this was an awesome crowd of thinkers and doers. The opportunity to learn about what they've been up to, and what they want to do next, was inspiring. Here are my sketchnotes:

I was drawn to Bob Miller's suggestion that everyday citizens could engage their neighbourhood spaces with simple activities such as front-yard gardening. This idea reminded me of the 23rd Avenue Artwalk & Street Celebration I helped to organize on my street in Ramsay last year: an event that grew out of a desire to share and showcase the creative talents of a street full of neighbours.

Our one-day event certainly convinced me that getting neighbours out on their front lawns is a great way to forge connections, make streetscapes more lively and lovely, and enjoy all sorts of excellent long-lasting "by-products" into the bargain (neighbourhood safety... friendships... inspiration... not to mention a line on local vegetables, if your neighbours happen to be the Leaf Ninjas). Anyway, I joined this group of thinkers who were working on building a lego model of what our "living sidewalks" (enlivened by gardens, art and general neighbourhood creativity). Here's Mike Fotheringham showing the street we designed.

It's a cul-de-sac that features a painted street, gardens and art installations in front yards, as well as all sorts of other front-yard features to entice visitors over: a bench, a firepit, a gazebo, and an empty lot featuring a tire filled with potatoes. Oh, and some chickens - or at least, a representational chicken leg.

Our group discussion unearthed other ways to engage our street- and sidewalkscapes:

Pop-Ups (shameless plug: take a look at find it!)
Home business ventures, from lemonade stands to yard sales to craft fairs
Street festivals
Firepits for chilly evenings (with hot chocolate for neighbours who stop by)
"Little Free Libraries"
Water tanks & rain barrels for watering gardens
Public art (for some great homegrown examples courtesy of Calgary is Awesome, see here)
(And by the way, public art can sometimes serve a purpose as well as plain old street beautification: witness the Painted Utility Box Program and Sunalta's muralized pedestrian crossing)

Good things about this kind of engagement:
It doesn't have to cost a lot
It doesn't (have to) require jumping through a lot of bureaucratic hoops
It can have great side-effects (traffic calming; crime prevention; neighbourhood networking; creative inspiration; healthy outdoor activity... the list is endless!)
And... it can get people (such as elderly folks) engaged, who wouldn't usually have that kind of opportunity

If you need more inspiration about this kind of thing, look no further than this TED Talk by Jason Roberts of Austin, Texas, in case you haven't heard about his brilliant "Better Blocks."

Well - our group of imagineCALGARIANS talked about staying in touch in order to make something happen on our own streetscapes. Stay tuned! I'll let you know what we come up with!

Thanks, imagineCALGARY, for a great morning. And now back to the train tracks.

So here's how it started... with a 7-foot-long "mind map" showing a sampling of arts & culture events and organizations that Calgary celebrated during 2012, its year as Cultural Capital of Canada.

But now that 2012 is over, Calgary 2012 is handing all this arts & culture engagement over to 3 Things for Calgary - an ongoing civic engagement project which will be well suited to keep up the great momentum built in the city's arts scene over the past year. That's Karen Ball (Calgary 2012) handing over a wheelbarrow full of arts & culture stuff to Nancy Close (3 Things for Calgary).

There's one minor point... the wheelbarrow wheel should be on the front of the wheelbarrow. Not the back. Hey, I'm an artist, not a wheelbarrow expert. Maybe if there weren't 3 feet of snow outside and I had actually worked in a garden anytime recently, I'd have been more up to speed on the art of wheelbarrow depiction. Oh well. You get the idea!

Then what happened? There was an enormous party to celebrate the end of Calgary 2012's year of great work. And everyone was invited to contribute ideas and suggestions to the map. Which they did.

And what happens next? Something will be done with all these creative suggestions. What exactly will that be? It will be something creative. I'll keep you posted!

Today I had the pleasure of attending the Mayor's Lunch for Arts Champions - a first-time event celebrating Calgary artists, art patrons, and anyone else who's being irresistibly drawn to the incredible arts-empowered vibe in Calgary these days. It was fun to have lunch at the find it table with a few members of the find it team (and a few others I didn't even get the chance to get to know!). It was inspiring to see so many Calgarians who are passionate about the arts... including the folks at City Hall! And, for me, also nice to take a step away from my usual mostly-stay-at-home-mom life in Ramsay and mingle with so many members of Calgary's arts community.

Here's a graphic recording of sorts - sketched at the table during the lunch - to celebrate a great event!

And now, back to the only "creative" work I can ever realistically get done while my son's awake...!