As a novelist, I often think of storytelling as a solo effort. I hole up in MY office in front of MY computer and try to pull a good story out of MY brain. On the side, I try to keep up with the interaction of social media. Maybe I love this idea launched by former corporate lawyer Karla Valenti purely because it is the very opposite of what I do each day: public art, collaborative storytelling, for children. Here’s an excerpt from Latina Lista:
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| Photo taken from Rock Thoughts Blog |
“The concept is simple enough: Find a palm-size rock; paint it to look like a monster; take a picture of the finished rock and send it to Rock Thoughts, who will send you a special code to write on your rock; create a story around your new ‘monster rock’ and submit it to Rock Thoughts; and finally, release the rock into the wild—or your nearest public space where someone will find it and start the process all over.”
"I wanted to create a virtual space that allowed participants to connect with people from all over the world, from different cultures and different lifestyles, exposing each other to unique perspectives as well as providing opportunities for people to collaborate in generating something new," Valenti said. "The collaboration comes in many ways: by creating a story for a rock that was painted by another and then hiding the rock for someone else to continue the narrative; by adopting rocks that have been previously painted and submitting a story for those rocks; by crowdsourcing a story for a featured rock; and by providing feedback to each other's stories.”
Fascinating. Will it catch on? I’ll be watching, and if I find a monster rock lurking around my comings and goings, I’ll see what stories it has to tell me. Would you participate in public art like this? Have you ever participated in any kind of effort to create collaborative art?
