I lay out my best stuff at Northern Voice – a Vancouver personal expression conference full of familiar faces and free thinkers which allows me to experiment with both my form and message.
I kept my string of 5 years alive {Rock N Roll Photo panel, Letters from Russia prezo, F@ck Stats Make Art prezo, Canucks podcast panel, “Bob Dylan” Podcasting prezo, Blogging your Passion panel} with this year’s contribution delivered via video while i was recuperating from a surgical procedure.
While sad not to be there, my sprits were buoyed by the kind words via Twitter etc. from folks who made it by to see the video in panel along with my pal Monica Hamburg delivering thoughts about Finding your Voice Online.
I was physically weary after a surgery and run down while shooting but this condition perhaps helped in capturing significant honesty from me. As such, I hope my words offer you solace and inspiration. Special dedication to my Mom who wrote the bit in the baby book.
Video
The video was made by a frequent collaborator during production of With Glowing Hearts, Andrew Lavinge. Music was from my standbys: The Numbskulz with “Doggie” & The Black Tories with the intro to “Pretty Like Gasoline”.
Dossier
Panel: Finding your Voice Online
Finding a creative voice which personally fulfils and inspires others begins with growing comfortable with your own stories and their related artifacts. In a field trip to his home studio in Upper Lynn Valley, storymaker Dave Olson (AKA UncleWeed) extols important keys to creativity over a cuppa tea before sharing creative project example from childhood to present. Along with explaining how each endeavour shaped his voice for a contemporary stream of mixed media personal expression, he shares key influences via shelves full of heroes who provided solace and wisdom.
Monica Hamburg will help you decide how to shape your online voice, what good blog writing means, and how to write in a way that will convince readers to care about your blog (“C’mon! My cat is sooo cute, right?”).
Pics
See Flickr photos tagged uncleweed and nv10
Blog Round up
Inspired & Inspiring « Give Music
Also, in today’s 2010 Northern Voice conference on blogging and social media,Monica Hamburg and Dave Olson did a fantastic job of encourging practice, honing skill, taking risks, and being true to self so I’ll do just that and maybe I’ll get somewhere.
NorthernVoice 2010 « gotcurls
One of my favorite presentations was Finding your Inner Voice by Monica Hamburg and Dave Olson. It was funny, engaging, and told an incredible story, one that each person could relate to. Dave wasn’t able to make the session so he sent in a video. When they were setting up the video I honestly thought “Oh man, I should bail out of this now and just get in line early for lunch.” I really wasn’t expecting much from a video presentation. Fortunately I decided to stay. Here is Dave Olson’s video.
So if you watched this video, which I hope you have, you probably thought it was pretty frackin’ hysterical and creative. I, like Dave, loved writing stories as a kid and I loved art work. My mom set up a special room for us in our home where my sister and I could sit at our art table and work on any project we wanted. She had an art box for us full of glitter (a parent’s worst nightmare), scissors, glue, construction paper, paints, markers, stencils, and pencils. As long as we cleaned the art table after crafting we were able to create anything we wanted. Our laundry room was converted into our art gallery. Random drawings and paintings were taped onto the laundry room cupboards and strung along the ceiling. Dave Olson’s video reminded me that of my art room and art box, I honestly had forgotten about it, or perhaps just haven’t thought about it in such a long time.
Northern Voice 2010… Just A Beginning… – Bob Songs
Dave Olson and Monica Hamburg gave a great Multi-Media session on “Finding Your Online Voice“. Great insight into finding inspiration. All Bloggers have run into the “What do I write about” and “How should I writer about it” questions. I (and other Crazy Cat people) found it funny, how on Day One, every session made a reference to Crazy Cat people.
Northern Voice 2010 takeaways – Random Dude
Dave Olson says “Take Risks and Hone your Craft with practice. Your voice comes out of your personal experiences.
Northern Voice 2010: The Great, the Meh and the Ugly – Kim P Werker
One of the themes of the conference (no, I don’t actually think the organizers ever actually said the conference had a theme) was about finding your voice. Kimli and Steff certainly reiterated what I hear was said during Monica Hamburg’s and Dave Olsen’s session called, ba-dum-bum, Finding Your Voice. I missed that session because I made the regrettable decision to attend the Copyright and Online Expression talk instead (more later on how bad a decision that was). The chatter on Twitter, however, indicated the voice session was very much loved and adored.
Northern Exposure – Design Faire
Next up, was one of my favorite sessions by Monica Hamburg and Dave Olsen on Finding Your Voice. Monica’s witty presentation left me with the confidence to know that although I may suck at blogging right now, writing more, reading more, and writing more will make me better (I hope!). Oh and having good grammar and hygiene helps too! And don’t forget to spellcheck!
Dave Olsen, aka @UncleWeed came to us via satellite (ok, it was pre-recorded) from his mansion on the hills (North Vancouver). Somehow Uncle Weed seemed to be channelling Mr. Rogers and the resemblance was uncanny. His wisdom was perhaps no less instructive than the late Mr. Rogers. Blogging is about storytelling. Regardless of the medium, voice can only be found when we find the stories within and learn to tell them. And in the wise words of Uncle Weed, it’s 80% meditation, 10% execution, and 10% inebriation.
Blogging: Find Your Online Voice with Monica Hamburg – Tech Linz
oh and Dave, the audience was in stitches with your video (pun intended!).
The Genius Kids at Northern Voice – Speak When Illuminated
In Storymaking with Dave Olson, we followed Dave on a journey through his own personal artifacts and heard how he uses them as inspiration for current projects. You can follow him at Uncleweed.net This talk made me want to run home and start mucking about with paint and random boxes of collectables.
Twitters
berryshine – craft+intent/integrity=art (re: Dave Olson) – 9:34 PM May 16th
sleslie – @uncleweed‘s “storymaking” video for #northernvoice is really fantastic http://bit.ly/9Az7zD be brave, take risks, let it percolate – 9:43 AM May 13th
rickvug – The always entertaining @uncleweed on finding your voice online
: http://is.gd/c31YA (hint: take risks + hone your craft) #nv10 – 11:30 AM May 10th
quinnhigurashi – @uncleweed is very inspiring. Thanks, and hearts for you. http://ht.ly/1IUwG – 9:56 PM May 9th
anitawebster – @uncleweed Really loved video you made for us at #nv10. Slippers, tea – all of it. Get well soooon! 9:36 PM May 9th
stephen_rees – @uncleweed and you both did a great job! I really enjoyed the movie #NV10 #northernvoice10 – 5:14 PM May 8th
Miss604 – You should watch the With Glowing Hearts trailer http://wghthemovie.ca (I want to hug @aprilfilms & @uncleweed right now) #nv10 #olympics – 2:10 PM May 8th
See more background at The Vancouver Observer: Sparking creativity by taking risks and practicing craft