Entry d8: A Poster Child

   Well today, I at last got a few of my stand up cartoon characters made. Even though on Monday I was sick I spent that night at my dinning room table table, wrapped in blankets, wearing a scarf and coat painting on these huge sheets of cardboard that took up a majority of my table.  It was great fun and really helped to keep my mind off the mind crushing headache I had all that afternoon.

    I painted a small street urchin looking person with a blue vest over a tan tunic. He carries a parcel bag with scrolls spewing from under the lip. In one of his little stick arms he is holding up one of my fliers as if to say "Read all about it!." I also painted another one last night which is a goblin wearing furs, and a necklace made with the bones of some unknown creature. He also holds one of my fliers in his left hand and in the other a large spear. Both of these cut outs stand about three feet high and are painted in bright colors to make them catch the eyes of an interested passerby all the more.

    The goblin raider (named Grimmick Longtail) is currently raiding the small language arts classroom of Mr. Haskey. I hear that hes already pulled the attention of a couple travelers. While the street urchin (Travis the minstrel Magillacuty) will in just a few hours from when I post this, be peddling his wares in the lobby of the Saint Joseph Downtown Public Library (thanks to Kathy) and hopefully be attracting some visitors for the event. I'll place him there at the beginning of my Undead Poet's Society meeting this afternoon.

   To those that read this blog, I encourage you to spread the news of my project to others in the Saint Joseph community, and if you have any questions feel free to ask them via comment.

Entry d7: A Dire Whale of a Tale

    The project has really started to come together over the last few days. I have made the first of my posters for the event as well as sketched out the base ideas for the stand up figures of fantasy cartoon characters I plan to place at the library as well as at my school. Its progressing very well, but the other day a great dire whale of an idea struck me; Dungeons and Dragons is an art not in that it brings people closer, but in the way that it does this.
    I mentioned in entry d2 that Dungeons and Dragons is a living breathing art form because it brings a wide variety of people together, but I really didn't pick the meat from this idea. It wasn't until I was reading through my copy of the book The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. As I walked the endless labyrinth of passages I had previously marked as important, I stumbled across the blood smeared, inked up passage:

     "Olympe is not one for for affected charades, the way some people in the building are, to prove that because she is a well-brought-up-child-of-leftists-without-prejudices she is conversing with the concierge. Olympe talks to me because I have a cat, and that brings us into a community of interests."

                           (Elegance of the Hedgehog P.115)

    I stopped searching when I came to this passage as it inspired me to pick up my pencil, and I feverishly began to write my ideas. Dungeons and Dragons, is a game that I have in the past three years come to love very dearly. I will talk, debate, argue, and discuss this fantastic game for hours with anyone stupid enough to willingly enter a conversation on it with me, and yet the thing I had never thought of or taken into consideration was the community the game builds around itself, nor the way it seems to draw those cast out back in.

    A community of interests, a community that allows people to practice escapism so that they may for just a few hours be the hero, the one who always gets the girl, or the one who has the power to stand up for those they see as friends. In this fictional world, created by the dungeon master, and shared by the players characters, the players can hide from the cruelty of the harsh world, and for that time feel like others do.This is a beauty that is created by the game, an artificial and completely fictional scene, and yet it has the power to create such a very real beauty in this world of ours.

    Like 1920's America, Dungeons and Dragons seems to have the motto, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free, as it is a shelter for all who seek to express themselves in an environment where no one will patronize them for their "strangeness" or their "short comings".  It allows for those with social stresses or social disabilities to feel the way everyone else does.

    Now I am not saying that everyone who plays Dungeons and Dragons is a geek, nerd, or social out cast; because they are not... and that's the beauty of the game! Its the bridge between cliches, the glue that builds communities of interest, and its in this creation of community that all those that play Dungeons and dragons help create beauty in our world. So for my event I want to help foster that beauty in all that attend my event. I want to extend a hand to those who have fallen into exile from the world, I want to banish the negative thoughts that surround the game like a challenge rating 3 bat swarm, to break down the walls that create the cliches of our lives, and most of all I want to build a community that is based upon acceptance and creative expression.

    Dungeons and Dragons is how I create Art, and as Paloma said "I want to be building."

Entry d5: A Confirmation

Well today I got back from school and checked my inbox on Yahoo to find this message from my TAG instructor:

   "Please don't let the due date stop you! I will allow you the weekend after the 8th for you to follow through with this great idea!"
                                               Mr. Haskey

This means I will be able to hold my event on a Saturday. I am super excited for this, and now that I have confirmation on the date; I can really start on the finer details and the hard work that will allow this project to be the best that it can be. Yet I'm a little afraid of the next couple steps that I have to follow after I relay this information to Kathy the woman at the public library. 

First I have to find volunteers to help me run games as well as people who are familiar with the game to sit among the ones that are new to the game. Many of these volunteers will probably be the guys who play with me every Wednesday. I also have to start putting together an agenda for the event. I do look forward to making the fliers for it, as I really like doing things like that. Theres a bit more to do as well, but for now I'll just keep my mind focused on what I can do within the next couple days. Well I'm off to get started!

I need to figure out a name for this whole event. If you have any ideas feel free to recommend them by commenting.