Project: Joy

Ok! So!

My collaborative fiber art project proposal was... very successful. Way more successful than I anticipated. 

In the end, 171 contributions were submitted by you all. Cool!!! ....Now.... how does one... begin turning 171 words into visual icons so they can be combined onto one enormous tapestry together? 

First, I copy-pasted over ever individual response into a spreadsheet, dividing the information up between the specific answer, name of participant, how they'd like to be credited (or not), and expanded explanation of their answer if they provided one. 

I am sure that at some point in my life I have made a spreadsheet. I do not, however, remember this. And I've definitely never made one in Google Sheets. I'm pretty sure I also have some kind of undiagnosed learning disability (that's a whole other story), so figuring out even basic computer programs is bizarrely difficult for me. All of which is to say that after several hours of poking and prodding my rudimentary spreadsheet last night, ultimately I made a bestial noise at my laptop before shoving it under the couch in frustration and Matt observed "You got so mad at your computer that you literally buried it like an animal."

This morning Matt went in and tinkered around so that I could classify each submission into its own category and group them together (the task that reverted me into a primate the night before). (Ironically, one patron listed "Spreadsheets" as the activity that gives them joy and oh my lord I wish you had been there to help me!)

Very broadly, I sorted everyone's submissions into the category of Nature, Animal, Physical Object, Art/Creativity, Feeling / Spiritual, and Activity. It's not a perfect system, to be sure. 

Like Daydreaming, is that an Activity (where I put it) or does it go under Feeling? Singing, Words, and Writing with my best friend, are they Art/Creativity, Feeling/Spiritual, or Activity? I put Fraggles under Animal, because Physical Object didn't feel right. Shit, maybe they should go under Family/People. Fuck.

Shakespeare (both watching and performing) was a puzzler, because the work of Shakespeare would definitely go under Art/Creativity, but the watching and performing of it seems more like an Activity?

Now that each submission is basically grouped in with its kin, I will start the first artistic part of this project: translating these individual words into simple icons to represent them. 

Wish me luck.

PS: DOES ANYONE HAVE A TITLE SUGGESTION FOR THIS PROJECT?

I'm just calling it Project: Joy or The Joy Project right now, but I'm not in love with either of those :-/