Good morning, Moment Sketchers!

This week on the blog, I’m thrilled to share an idea with you that I’ve had in the back of my mind since the middle of January earlier this year — so it’s only been brewing for a mere ten months or so by now 🙂

But from nearly the moment our monthly sketching challenges kicked off in 2017, I had the idea that we could create a manifesto capturing the heart, soul, and vision of our wonderful community around the globe. And yet as eager as I was to write a manifesto at the beginning of our journey together, I also felt it might be better to wait until the end of the year — once our community had had more time to coalesce, and our beliefs and goals as a group were more settled into place.

Now, it feels like the time is finally right to create our first manifesto…and I’d love your help.

Moment Sketchers manifesto
A glimpse at my first scribbled ideas for our Moment Sketchers manifesto back in January.

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But first things first…what do I mean by manifesto?

While the word ‘manifesto’ may conjure up a weighty political tome in your mind, the manifesto I’m envisioning is of a different sort — comprised of short, powerful phrases; beautifully designed, with the phrases usually fitting on a single page or piece of paper; and it’s often hand-lettered or uses striking fonts and visual elements.

Perhaps one of the best-known manifestos of this kind was created by Holstee in 2009, and many others have been created in a similar style since then. Just to give you a few ideas of what I’m envisioning for our Moment Sketchers community, I rounded up the following three manifestos — from the famous Holstee manifesto to others for the storytelling platform Maptia and even a fair-trade jewelry company my dear sister Brooke works with called the Noonday Collection:

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How do you write a manifesto?

After rounding up the above manifestos, I also loved doing a bit of research and reading other resources that give advice on how to write one — and both Alexandra Franzen and Hannah Braime were a great help. They each advise creating powerful statements that sum up our opinions, beliefs, goals, and vision — and they suggest getting started by filling out the following statements:

We love…

We believe…

We know…

We are…

We are committed to…

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Now…will you help me write our Moment Sketchers manifesto?

As much as I loved jotting down ideas for our Moment Sketchers manifesto back in January, it just wouldn’t feel right doing it on my own now, here at the end of the year. Because as 2017 has gone by, Moment Sketchers has felt less like something that only “I” am behind and more like a community “we” have all helped to build together — month by month, sketch by sketch.

I would love for our manifesto to be something that we all create together and which we can then use to share with others, conveying the vision and heart of our tribe in a single image.

If you’d like to help write our manifesto, all you need to do is:

1. Leave a comment below, filling in the statements I shared above — please feel free to fill out only one of the statements or as many that resonate with you. For example, “We believe in slowing down and seeing the world more deeply…”

2. If other phrases and statements come to mind that don’t fit exactly with the above prompts, share them anyways! 

3. The deadline for contributing is 12 noon EST, Friday November 24th — I’ll then spend a couple of weeks designing the manifesto and have it ready to share with you in December.

Thanks so much in advance for taking part in writing our Moment Sketchers manifesto, and I can’t wait to read your thoughts, beliefs, and ideas capturing the heart of our community.

Moment Sketchers manifesto
A few more ideas from my manifesto brainstorming session in January…now I look forward to reading yours!

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34 Comments

  • This is so powerful. Crafting words that speak your hearts. I can’t wait to see this unfold. I’m not a Moment Sketcher but I come here to breathe in the beauty you offer. So I would add, “Offer sketches that soothes the soul, silence the pain, and say, ‘Sit for a minute. Soak in this moment. Savor it before it goes.”

    • Thank you so much for sharing this, Mom! I especially love the thought of “savoring the moment before it goes”–that’s such a perfect way to describe one of the central goals of Moment Sketchers, and I’m grateful you put it so beautifully 🙂 Love you!

    • Hello Candace’s mom!!! Nice to meet you. I think you are a Moment Sketcher just via being mom! Yours are wise words.

  • Great idea, Candace!

    One of the greatest challenges for me when sketching is overcoming the self-criticism that tells me that my efforts aren’t matching up with what others are doing or what I think I should be producing. As uncomfortable as that feeling is, I think that it’s one of the major benefits of trying to learn something new and push myself out of my comfort zone. I would suggest that part of the manifesto would be something like this: “We believe that creating art helps us to move out of our comfort zone and that personal growth happens when we push up against that border between what we CAN do and what we ASPIRE to do.”

    • “…that border between what we CAN do and what we ASPIRE to do.” Mark–that is so powerful! I can’t imagine a better way to describe that border and the tension we all feel as beginners of a creative practice…thank you so much for contributing that to our Moment Sketchers manifesto! It also really reminds me of a powerful, short talk by Ira Glass called “The Gap”–I’m not sure if you’ve seen it, but I thought I would share the video version of it with you just in case 🙂

      Thanks so much again, and I can’t wait to keep seeing how you evolve and grow as an artist!

      • Thanks, Candace. The Ira Glass talk is right-on – great advice for those of us who are struggling with creativity or learning something new. Maybe you can do an entire blog entry about this concept?

    • Very true. A few times I have though that I am so out of my league (before, during and after doing my piece) I should just bow out but then I think of the community and realise I don’t have to be perfect or even good I just have to have a go and try to improve and what better way than looking at the other amazing contributions.

  • I love this! I would say that “a great sketch with soul and character is based on its imperfections and details”

  • Great idea Candace! As we seem to dance with serendipity, I had an email in my inbox along with yours about this post from Creative Mornings. I signed up to receive their newsletters after reading about you and your presentation with them many months ago. I love their newsletters. In the newsletter from this morning there was this quote that I wanted to share: “When you have these things you love, put it out there. Eventually you’re going to find like-minded people, and they’re going to help you further along in your journey and your path”. — Chris Glass.
    I found this very fitting on many levels – our community of Moment Sketchers continues to grow from its inception along its journey and we all grow and have moved further along on all of our journeys. We all support each other in our endeavours, our growth and the many paths we are taking.

    • Hello, dear Treava! As always, your comment is so rich and full of ideas and inspiration to respond to 🙂 Firstly, I adore the serendipity of this post’s notification arriving at the same time as the weekly newsletter from Creative Mornings! I too am signed up for their emails now, and I truly look forward to them every week–there’s always a little gem, some quote or link, that resonates with me…and the quote you shared here is a perfect example of that. I couldn’t imagine a better quote to sum up the heart of Moment Sketchers!

      I also love your point of how we support each other in our creative endeavors–to me, that feels like one of the key tenets of our tribe, and it will definitely need to be represented in the manifesto 🙂 Thank you so much for sharing all that here, and I can’t wait to hopefully share the manifesto with you soon! <3

  • Hi Candace,
    Term’s (and year’s) end is nearly upon me for my class. Only one fortnight to go before our summer holidays. So my brain is pretty well fried but I will hopefully make some sense. Thanks as always for making us all feel like part of such a special community. My contribution is as such…

    We love our variety, our differences and our similarities – in our artworks, our lives and our surrounds

    We believe that we are all of equal value and that we are all doing the best we can however we can and that the first weekend of each month may well be the happiest and most welcoming

    We know that bad things happen in the world and in our lives but that art can make the light glow again and that together it can positively shine.

    We are an ecclectic bunch but that is the best part!

    We are committed to positivity and gratitude which benefits the givers and the receivers

    Not sure if any of that is of any use and the cat sprawled across my arms and keyboard has made typing a bit difficult but I am not game to move him as he was accidentally shut in my wardrobe all day so I am feeling a bit guilty.
    Have fun putting together all the ideas Candace – it will be lovely to read. You are doing a great thing by many many many people and I feel so lucky to be part of such a wonderful community who are seriously talented but also so supportive of the hackers like myself! Looking forward to next weekend. Take care.

    • Amanda, I am not surprised at all that your ideas for the manifesto are so wonderful or full of such supportive encouragement–thank you so much for taking the time to share them here, especially given your dear cat sprawled across your keyboard and your brain no doubt exhausted from another intense week with your class! It means the world to me that you would take the time to contribute to our manifesto, and please know I will be cheering you on these next two weeks from Montevideo 🙂 As always, I feel so grateful and blessed to have you be part of our Moment Sketchers family, and I can’t wait to share the finished manifesto with you soon! <3

    • Great ideas, Amanda. It’s fitting that you would have input on this since you are one of the people who is super-supportive and appreciative of the efforts of others. Your positive attitude helps to foster the concepts that you have mentioned here. Thanks for helping to encourage the Moment Sketchers community! – Mark (AKA Pausation)

    • Art can make the light glow again… it has for me! I love this phrase, Amanda! I laughed to read that you cat got shut in the wardrobe… poor puss

  • Thanks for the opportunity to contribute Candace! I love the ideas your jotted down during your brainstorming session, and I totally agree with the contributions of others below. Another part for me, is how appreciative I am when I take time to sit down and sketch something that is happening in my world at that moment, and the warm memories that flood back when I look back at a later time.

    Thanks for undertaking this, I look forward to reading the completed manifesto! 🙂

  • Hi, Candace. This is such a great idea! Thank you for involving us in the process of creating a manifesto for Moment Sketchers. You are an inspiration and a wonderful leader in the creative community. I’m not good with words, but here goes… 🙂

    We love to savor each moment and create wonderful memories by sketching and painting our lives

    We believe that everyone is creative and we can all inspire one another through our stories

    We know we are not alone because we are connected through each others’ stories and art

    We are not afraid to make mistakes or fail because we understand that the process–the learning, the journey of life–is more important

    We are committed to sharing the beauty of what we see with others, in the hope that they may look up from where they are and be able to realize that life is precious, it’s a gift that should be truly lived.

  • What a great idea, Candace! The feelings I have about moment sketchers are that:
    We love seeing the world through others’ eyes; We believe in nurturing our creativity through positivity and encouragement; We know that being part of a creative community helps us grow; We are a global creative community which makes the world a better place. Through sketching, I am learning to slow down and find joy in the details of my life.

    Looking forward to seeing the results of this melting pot!

  • What a brilliant idea, Candace! Great way to define the path this community already was laying ahead and a good opportunity to sharpen profiles and pencils to help us realise what the “momentsketchers” movement actually is about to achieve. Brilliant, indeed.

    And I’m gladly contributing my humble point of view. Thanks again for inspiring such a committed crowd here!

    We love to discover a moment’s quintessence.
    We believe that sketching a moment means to recognize this quintessence.
    We know that the world consists of moments. Many moments. All the time.
    We are many pencils, pens, and brushes.
    We are committed to document the world which surrounds us.

  • You are certainly stretching us in every way Candace. Loved reading everyone’s comments below and dying to see how this transitions.
    One of my favourite sayings is by Albert Einstein: ‘Creativity is contagious, Pass it on’.
    Okay a few words below:

    We love our supportive, multi national, multi talented community
    We believe in the magic of sketching
    We know we are all individuals with a creative soul
    We are beginners, we are experienced but we are all excited children unwrapping new sketches and knowledge from around the globe
    We are committed to keep sketching alive and be stimulated by our surroundings. Life is not bleak with a brush in your hand

    Thanks again, Candace and to all those fabulous sayings below me here.

    • I love the line about being beginners and unwrapping new sketches/knowledge like excited children!
      That last statement is extra powerful, too—wow. I love to use affirmatives, so my mind’s tweaking it ever so slightly: “Life is inspiring/thrilling/xyz with a brush in your hand.” Thanks so much for your words, Victoria.

  • Dear Candance ! Such a wonderful proyect!
    I believe that Creativity lies within each of every one of us , waiting just to find its way anytime in our lives . Inspiring fresh , and spontaneous simple sketchs are just perfect to awaken it ! Love your work so much !! Thankyou !! ❤️

  • Better late than never 🙂 Such a wonderful idea Candace. A few I came up with earlier in the week.

    We are Moment Sketchers.
    We look for details in our lives to capture.
    We believe that art can make global connections.
    We are connected by an invisible thread sewn through our sketchbooks around the world.
    We stop, pause.
    We observe.
    We draw.
    We love to capture a moment in time with a pencil.
    We believe in sharing to make positive connections around the world.
    We believe in the power of the pencil.
    We believe our art can bring down borders, differences and walls.

  • I’m so excited for this manifesto! Love the idea to put one together—especially to pool ideas from the community.

    Here are some ideas coming to mind right away:
    – We are committed to appreciating moments and simple pleasures through sketching.
    – We sketch together to enjoy the process. (as opposed to being results/quality-focused… there must be a better way to word this.)
    – We love encouraging anyone and everyone to pick up a pen (or pencil, crayon, anything!) and sketch—no experience required.
    – We know art has a magical power to connect.

    Now I’ll take a look at what others have written below!

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