Thirteenth Journal Entry - Wednesday, April 27th.

The past week and a half I’ve written my third and fourth letter to my buddy. The third letter was about my home and the fourth was about my neighborhood. I had quite a few to say about both. Sadly, it seems like my second letter was late or never arrived, which makes me really bummed. However, I think these will go through the mail just fine. I haven’t received a single letter back from my buddy yet, and I really wish I could get one just so I could read it. I’ve sent quite a few letters in a row now without ever hearing a peep about what my buddy is like. It makes it harder to write the letters since all I can really do is talk about myself and ask questions. Crossing my fingers that I get my response letter soon!

Twelfth Journal Entry - Monday, April 18th.

I went and wrote my second letter to my buddy, which was about things I liked. I talked about how I grew into liking scary things, and why I enjoy them so much. I haven’t gotten a letter back in response to my first letter yet, but maybe that's because the mail takes so long. I hope my letters are getting there ok. To fill out the rest of my hours this week, since the letter writing is pretty brief, I continued to fill out my church spreadsheet. 

Eleventh Journal Entry - Monday, April 11th.

Wow, it’s the 11th entry on the 11th day of the month. That must be lucky or something. This was the week I’d been waiting for! I got to write my letter to my buddy Richard and send it out into the mail. It was pretty sweet, I can’t wait to get his reply in the mail. I introduced myself and mentioned a few fun things to break the ice. I also got to draw my ‘buddy card’, which is kinda like a pokemon card, but for people. I think it turned out very cute. It makes me miss drawing with colored pencils. I’m going to write my second letter and mail it very soon as well, but I might wait just a little longer to see if I’ll get my buddy’s letter in the mail first. I also got to see the other penpal partners in a short meeting with Mari and the bunch, which was my first time seeing them. With the exception of Christina, who I knew was also on the penpal list. I hope I get to see the buddy cards the other penpal partners drew. I bet they turned out really cute, even if they aren’t big on drawing. To fill in an extra hour or two, I of course filled in more of the church spreadsheet. Getting closer to 200!

Tenth Journal Entry - Sunday, April 3rd.

Another week that went by in a flash. I’m holding out on preparing my penpal letter until after I go through orientation, which is actually just tomorrow! It seems that my penpal is named Richard, and our pair is #6 on the list. I’m really looking forward to getting to know ‘em, and introducing myself in my letter. It’s also nice to see a fellow student on the penpal list, Christina. Again, this week was spent clocking in contact info for churches on the spreadsheet. I’ve gotten to around 150 of them in the immediate area, and I’m pretty proud of that.

Nineth Journal Entry - Monday, March 28th.

Here’s the calm before the storm it seems. The semester is quickly coming to a close, and things are starting to slow down. I’ve had significantly less work this week than previous, Art Buddies included. However, I got my penpal packet in the mail! It’s crazy to think that only last week I was putting together dozens of these things like a madman. I can’t break into it just yet though. Orientation for the penpal program is on the 4th, which is two weeks away. I really look forward to it. Until then, I’m just chipping away at the churches’ contact spreadsheet, and I’ll most likely do the same next week as well.

Eighth Journal Entry - Sunday, March 20th.

Well spring break has come and gone, and boy did it leave me with a ton of work in its wake. I didn’t exactly plan on squeezing ten and a half hours within that one week but it just sorta happened. I had to finish the proper paperwork for Mari at Art Buddies for Friday morning, and I just barely got it all done. So many envelopes… so many stamps…  It was fun though! I marathoned more Marco Bucci painting videos and went to town on the rest of the sorting. Although I wish spring break was just a bit more restful. I feel like I was a huge help taking care of that for them though, which makes me feel nice. Soon, I’ll be sending my own pen pal letters! I can hardly wait.

Seventh Journal Entry - Monday, March 14th.

Even with being short on some materials, I’ve made quite a lot of progress on putting the packets for delivery together. I found a good rhythm. I get started on it, a few hours every day, right in the morning just after I get up. Not only does that guarantee I find time to do it, but it also gets me up and actively working on something to start my day off right. Since some of the work can be a bit samey, like hole punching 75 sheets or cutting lots of string, I like to put on Marco Bucci videos as I work. Hearing other artists talk in depth about their personal experiences gives me a lot to think about. I also squeezed an hour and a half filling out a bit more of the church spreadsheet. 100+ might be excessive, but the more contacts Art Buddies has, the more possible avenues for funding they’ll have.

Sixth Journal Entry - Monday, March 7th.

Well this was quite the week! I was finally able to get started on putting some of the important work together for art buddies. I just put some music on and systematically packaged up the right materials for their little packets. I got pretty far, but I still don't have 75 yet. I’m also going to put together 75 of the ‘mentor packets’ as well, and I got a head start on gathering the craft materials in one big box. I spent 4 hours doing that this week, spread across a couple days, and the last hour I spent filling out info in the church spreadsheet. I don’t have a couple of the materials I need to fully complete these, but Mari told me not to sweat it, since whatever ones I’m missing she’ll add to the packets afterward.  So far, it's been a lot of fun! It’ll be awesome when the kids finally get to use these materials themselves. Let’s just hope the weather warms up a bit by then.

Fifth Journal Entry - Saturday, February 26th.

So with not much to do and my next big milestone on Friday, I made a couple hours of this week for adding more churches to the list of contacts. It doesn’t leave me too much to write about unfortunately, since it’s not a very eventful activity. Hopefully though, with such a long list of potential contacts, at least some of them are bound to give funding to Art Buddies. Regardless, it's a very zen practice that I enjoy doing. I get to explore around the city on google maps. I spent an hour on Tuesday, an hour on Wednesday, and an hour on Thursday doing this. It became a little routine for me, it was nice. On Friday, we drove to meet Mari in person at Whittier International Elementary. We gathered up a whole bunch of supplies from the school storage room, which was very fun. It made me feel like I was really a part of the operation now. I was worried it wouldn’t all fit in my car, since she gave me a boatload of stuff. Now, I have all of the supplies I need to start putting together the buddy kits and the mentor kits.

Fourth Journal Entry - Sunday, February 20th.

This wasn’t a particularly eventful week, considering the buddy cards haven’t had their designs finalized yet. In order to get a couple hours in I spent some time gathering information about local churches that Art Buddies can use to contact for funding or resources. It was a pretty interesting workday, though repetitive. I haven’t been to a church in a couple years so it felt bizarre picking them out over google maps and getting their information. I was surprised at how many of them there are just in the metro area, and even multiple ones on the same block. Their websites varied in quality as well. Overall, I’m glad at least I had something to do this week, while Art Buddies are continuing to prepare their spring plans. Mari and I had a quick check-in as well, and decided on what to do next. Next Friday, I’m going to stop by Whittier Elementary again and pick up some supplies, and prepare them into little kits. In the meantime, I’ll continue working on the church contact list.

Third Journal Entry - Saturday, February 12th.

On Wednesday, I went to the Whittier International Elementary School to pick up the art supplies the Art Buddies folks were nice enough to lend to me. I wonder if they want me to return my leftovers? Because I certainly have a lot. I felt very silly showing up to the school and not knowing where exactly to go or how to get in. Eventually though I figured out where the stuff had been left for me, and I was surprised at how much I was given. With those materials, I got to make my crafts today! I put on some music and it was pretty tranquil to do after work. It took me a while but I was able to finish all three. I think the Art Buddies kids are going to have a lot of fun with these, now that I’ve gotten a chance to try them out myself. I created a faux stained glass hanging object with colored tissue paper, a personal flag that represents me and my school, and a paper cut-out imaginary animal. I especially liked the last craft, I think it turned out really cute. I won’t take example photos of them until tomorrow, when the sun is up and the lighting is nicer inside. Also, I got an email for an extra opportunity to fill in more hours, which is looking up churches in the area to contact about funding for Art Buddies. That should be a good way to put some more time in during the upcoming weeks. I ought to do another check-in call with them as well sometime.

Second Journal Entry - Sunday, February 6th.

On Wednesday, I spent an hour and a half discussing my 20 ideas with the two coordinators, Heidi and Mari, which was a lot of fun. They went into detail about which ideas they thought worked best and why, and we were able to narrow it down to 4 that they’re going to end up using this year! From there, we hammered out some of the specifics of those projects. What materials we might need to make them a reality and the logistics of it. I was so happy that they were most excited about my ‘trading card’ idea, where students get to use their imagination and make their own collectable trading card of themselves. Before our call was up, we planned on having me write the instructions for these projects, make an example of the card template, and choose a time for us to meet to pick up some of the materials. We agreed to meet next Wednesday in the morning. Later on Friday, I spent an hour and a half writing up all of the instructions and filling in the extra tasks I needed to do.  I’m really looking forward to getting the materials and actually making these crafts myself!! I haven’t really done anything ‘crafty’ in a long time, so it’s going to be swell. I hope I don’t fumble it up.

First Journal Entry - Saturday, January 29th.

I spent roughly an hour today and an hour yesterday researching and coming up with the last 9 potential craft ideas for the Art Buddies program. It didn’t take me as long as coming up with the first 11, but it was definitely more difficult than the first time around. Most of my early hours spent before practicum began were spent in calls with Mari and Heidi, (who are the Art Buddies coordinators),  and coming up with craft ideas was a breeze my first go around. After my first initial ideas though, I was struggling a little bit at where to go from there. Even though only a small fraction of them are actually going to be used, I wanted each of the ideas to seem unique. I hope none of them retread the same idea, or are too reliant on just ‘drawing’ to form a craft. Scouring the internet for ideas was a little bit fruitless in the beginning, since I had to rule out a lot of potential crafts due to some of the restrictions around the crafts and if it would be conducive to being sent in the mail. I couldn’t do anything too messy or sticky, such as finger painting. Nor could I use anything with glitter, or anything too complex.

I’m really looking forward to discussing my 20 craft ideas with Mari. It’s going to be really fun getting to explain them in more detail, but it’ll be a bit crushing having to decide which ones are on the chopping block. In the end we may only end up using three to five of those ideas, but at least we’ll know we chose the best ones out of the bunch. I hope we can get a jump on what exactly I can do to help their organization between now and when the Pen Pal Program begins, because I’m a little bit worried about not having enough to really fill in my hours.

Although this week didn’t give me much to do, once Mari and I decide on what crafts to go with, I can spend my time gathering the materials and actually making the crafts myself!