Feb 20 and 21

Anna and Molly
It was the pair's first time in Medium, and their first workshop focused on a poem about the human body. The directions were to verbally or visually represent a mark on their body, such as a birthmark or a scar. Anna thought that the workshop went well and that the six to eight women there enjoyed it. However, Anna mentioned the issue of incomplete participation by all the women - some just did not do it. How can SPACE facilitators deal with lack of participation? How formal is the workshop? Somewhere between a disciplined art class and an informal workshop...? Molly and Anna are planning to compile an attendance sheet every week as well as have the women compile their work into a super-glued collection book that they can keep for themselves.

Ariel and Becky
Ariel and I led our second workshop in Medium, and about 15 women were present. We brought in 30 photos of people in different scenes, including a cop pulling someone over, an LA county prison, Marilyn Monroe, an old woman, etc. Each person chose one photo, then prepared to write a short fictional story about the people in the picture. We began by having everyone brainstorm characters, including names, backgrounds, traits, etc, then brainstormed the plot and major event timeline. Then we wrote for about half an hour, then shared. All but 2 women shared their stories. About 4 of the stories were about prostitutes, in part because there were enough photos of women and/or prostitutes to choose from, and in part because the women did choose those photos over the many others available. At least one woman had an entirely non-fictional story about a family member, and one woman broke down crying after sharing her story. One woman commented at the end that "We thought this was gonna suck, but it was awesome."