Week of April 7

Mariya and Chen - Minimum
-very visual workshop
-started with blind contour drawings, then moved onto non-blind contour drawings, then they passed out contour drawings done previously by other women in SPACE
-they discussed what it means to portray a person with different lines
-they passed out magazines, and the prompt was to find a picture to re-draw with the materials available (charcoal, pastels, etc.)
-went well, small group

Ariel and Becky - Medium
-another largely attended workshop (24 women), so in the interest of minimizing discipline issues and creating an atmosphere conducive to free, uninterrupted creative expression, we created a prompt that forces each person to work independently and create a piece of introspective work.
-prompt: write a stream-of-consciousness piece on any of the following prompts, never lifting your pen: describe a time when you felt aware of a higher power, describe an out-of-body experience, what do you feel like when you're naked, when do you feel most powerful, do you live up to your parents' expectations, and how do you see the world?
-some women started talking after a bit, but everyone wrote, and most women shared. The workshop went really well, especially compared to past weeks of disrespectful atmospheres (1. monologues expressing something you're passionate about and 2. creating and discussing our ideal government)

Week of April 7, 2008

Britt and Katie - Medium
-workshop went really well, but it was shorter than usual because Katie's picture had to be taken (the shorter workshop created a get-down-to-business attitude).
-handed out worksheets helping people to create fictitious characters: at the top of the page, Britt and Katie typed an emotion. The prompt was to write a story about a fictitious character in the specific emotional state so that by the end, the character experienced the opposite emotion.
-When the group shared, all the women included the height, age, weight, and eye color in their character descriptions--clearly linked to the information to which their identities are minimized in the prison system.

Anna and Molly - Medium
-short workshop, about 25 minutes, because they were stuck outside by the officers for whatever reason
-they told the women to start thinking about a prompt as Homework for next week: create a story about the beginning of the world and the end of the world
-the women were really excited, and some of them said they needed the extra week's time to address the question fully

Courtney and Nina - Minimum
-they started by playing a piece of spoken word poetry
-prompt: write (in any form) about a political or social issue that is important to you
-one woman wrote about abortion from a pro-choice stance, which another woman disagreed with, and the two engaged in a mini-debate
-Nina considered this the best workshop yet
-Courtney noticed that there were a bunch of new faces at the workshop, entirely white women