Snippets {edition one}

Welcome to the first installment of Snippets - a new segment of collaborative art I hope to make a weekly tradition here at clarity-chaos.com.

Here's the idea - each week I wrap things up with a little Snippet for you - a few words that can stand alone, but that hint at a bigger story. Like I explained yesterday, there's a whole quilt hovering out there in our imaginations. I'm just showing you a patch, or maybe even just a thread.

But you? You - I hope you'll come back sometime this week and respond in your medium of choice. Photography, painting, drawing, words. Illustrate or continue the story. Interpret loosely, create boldly, and share unapologetically. I'm putting it out there, but I hope it takes on a life of it's own. I'd be honored to have you play along.

I want to thank Erin, Lily, Jill, and Lindsey for offering their responses in advance, so I can introduce the concept of Snippets to all of you. (Details on how to play at the end.)

Without further adieu, allow me to share with you my first edition of Snippets.

:::

Onion/Artichoke by Elizabeth @ clarity-chaos.com

He was more like an onion than an artichoke.

Even when you peeled back all the layers, there was no heart inside.

And he always made her cry.

{or alternatively...}

He was more like an artichoke than an onion.

When you peeled back all the layers, his heart was there inside.

And he never made her cry.

RESPONSES:

Onion by Erin @braincooksidea

Layers by Lily at ten finger workshop

artichoke/onion by Jill GG featuring Miu Miu shoes

by Jill at Good Life For Less (click to see images in larger size)

...

She kept hoping that if she worked hard enough to peel back more layers, she would stumble on a heart. When would she learn? After each layer, after each big fight, she'd feel the sinking sureness that he was not kind, not loving, not healthy. And yet she would wake up the next day with a new conviction to keep peeling, keep learning, her belief in his humanity and goodness renewed.

The sturdiness of her faith in him was, intellectually speaking, ludicrous. But to use logic to argue with the power and ferocity of that faith, that desire, was madness. So, like the world's most dogged vegetable peeler, most stubborn miner, she bent to her task, trying to excavate his heart. Her own hurt and fear was insignificant compared to her desperate longing to find a kernel of humanity; she needed, above all else, to redeem the tears she had wept, the work of peeling all of those layers, to show herself he was what she believed he was.

by Lindsey at A Design So Vast

:::

Want to play? Come back anytime this week, and in the COMMENTS to this post, leave a link to your blog, your flickr page, your etsy shop, or just write your response in your comment. (Please link back here, if possible.) Dig through your archives or create something new. Anyone can play along. I'll close comments next Thursday evening, and next Friday I'll list all the links and feature my favorite(s) before leaving you with another Snippet for the next week.

Be creative! As you can see, there is no right way to do this. Take the Snippet and riff. (It's sort of like a verbal/visual jam session.)