Special Project: “With A Pencil In My Pocket”

I am delighted to announce the beginning of a creative and quirky social artwork that 150 people will be participating in. (There are still 10 spots available if you’d like to join in!) This is the real-life version of my winning design idea for the contest “How to Use 500 Colored Pencils.”

Each month, and for 20 months total, I am sending each participant one of the 500 Colored Pencils. We each then have one month to seek out a real, material manifestation of our pencil’s color and color name - a place, person, thing, creature, activity, etc. that somehow embodies the essence of the color. For example, perhaps the “tragedy” pencil would lead someone to go see a Shakespeare play and write a poem about a lost loved one. Perhaps “tea with milk” would lead someone to invite a friend over for tea and write about their conversation. (More examples in the image below).

We will be documenting our findings by writing a short story or vignette about the experience on paper with that very pencil. These stories will be sent to me (Lea Redmond of Leafcutter Designs), scanned, and posted online on the project blog. By the end of the 20 months, six subscriptions to 500 Colored Pencils will have transformed into 3,000 stories of experience.

As a guest blogger for 500 Colored Pencils, each month I will also be posting on this site a few of the stories that have arrived in my mailbox. A big, huge, colorful thank you to Felissimo and 500 Colored Pencils for supporting the project with a generous donation of beautiful pencils!