Second Chance

If you weren't aware of the Envisage 365 project...then you should be.

Last summer, I was contacted by Sarah - one of the TWC community - to ask if I would post her idea to start a blog made up of women from everywhere. Women who would take a picture everyday and send it to her. These aren't anonymous, or random. These are women who have chosen to share some amazingly intimate things about their lives. Work. Family. Friends. Love. Anger. Joy. Depression. Children - in all of their incarnations, babies to adults. Art and Beauty. And Humor.

I asked Sarah if I could be one of the women to join - and I am grateful that she allowed me to participate. I have submitted 157 pictures, to date, with two more to send in for yesterday and today. I carry my camera around with me at all times, and have gotten better at getting it out when I see something I want to document. At the end of the day, I look at the pictures I have taken and choose one that, for me, signals something significant about my day.

This is not a homogeneous group of women. We are at all stages and places in their lives. We come from all different religious and philosophical backgrounds. We may not have chosen to be friends based on a variety of factors - but we are now a cohesive group.

I shared this blog with a colleague of mine who specializes her research in the way people - particularly women- document their lives. While her research has focused on African women use photos to echo their life events, she was wildly fascinated by the Envisage project. "You have to write a paper!", she said to me this week, as I talked about the realization that regardless of who we were as individuals, our experiences as women - lovers, mothers, wives, friends, grandmothers - ties us in a way that is fundamentally relate able to one another. We echo common themes that circle back onto each others spheres of life. We are not different.

(Does this sound a little like any other blog you may know? TWC for example?)

Sarah is starting a sister blog to the envisage project, and is limiting this one to 25 participants. The start date is March 1st, 2009. If you might be interested then I encourage you to contact her and find out more about the project. If you aren't sure, then scroll through the Envisage archives to look at the type of work that has been done to date. I think you will be amazed.

Sarah can be contacted at: photostate2009@gmail.com