Making Their Mark

Our camp crew of children, volunteers and helpers created River Forest's first public mural this past week. Each child had their own panel and we treated the wall like a gallery. Last summer our campers created a butterfly mural with chalk under the guidance of Forest Park artist Doris Bartek. She suggested butterflies for the subject matter because they are benign of any political or religious statements. Our chalk mural hung on and became a rough sketch for this year's painted version.

The theme of our July 5-8 camp at The Little Bits Workshop was "Be a Good Guerilla Artist." In addition to the mural, we left positive messages all around town in River Forest and Oak Park in the form of painted stones, moss paint, blank journals and little notes in the pockets of clothing at Sugar Cup Trading Co.

The more technologically advanced our society gets, I believe there is more of a need to communicate in organic and tangible ways.Think about how precious and rare stamped letters in the mailbox have become. Guerilla art is just one of the many physical expressions of anonymous communication. Learning how to do this in a non-destructive way was a big thrill for our camp participants. We also learned about the hobby of "letterboxing" which originated in England and has now spread all over the world. There are buried books and stamps all over the country including our community of River Forest, Oak Park and Forest Park. It's great fun to search online and find letterboxes in towns that we plan to visit on vacation and as a family, follow the clues to the hidden box which contains a handmade stamp, book and inkpad.

Several months ago I stumbled upon a magazine article about "Someguy" in San Fransisco who had an idea to send 1000 blank journals out into the world. Inside each numbered journal he stamped a message asking the person who found the journal to write or draw on a few pages then pass it on to a stranger or friend. These journals traveled to 35 countries and eventually 40 of them returned to "Someguy" and became an exhibit at MOMA, a book and a documentary simply called 1000 Journals.

If you have stumbled upon one of our Little Bits Campers' Journals, write a message of peace and pass it on. Our wish is that just like the 1000 Journals project, our little journals would return to the workshop campers who created them.