It's about Love.
It's about Community.
It's about Healing.
The heart-lifting effort to collect 10,000 photographs of the affectionately-inclined from around the world.
In 2010, 15 amazing people made an ongoing commitment to contribute time and energy to The Smooch! Project. This was The Smooch! Project Dream Team, a remarkable group of individuals who shared the dream of collecting 10,000 images from around the world. Dreamer Joanne McGibbon, shown above being smooched by her son, Brian, was on the team in 2010. You can read her Smooch! Project Hero story here.
All 2010 Dreamers agreed to contribute an average of two hours per month (or 24 hours over one year) to help out in a wide variety of ways. And — WOW! — help they did, as you’ll see by the list of the individual Dreamer contributions at the end of this post. 2010 was a really great and productive year.
Last month, I asked every Dreamer whether they wished to continue supporting the Smooch! in 2011. The bar was being raised: Dream Team members were now being asked to provide four hours per month (or 48 hours over one year). The happy result: 11 Dreamers from 2010 agreed to continue their work in 2011.Three members asked to remain on the update list as “Honorary Dreamers,” meaning they wanted to keep up-to-date on the behind-the-scenes Smooch! activities and would serve in an advisory capacity.
I am so amazed at the draw this project has on people! I asked the Dreamers what motivated them to support the project long term. Dreamer Karen Van Wert replied, “I believe that one person can change the world. The Smooch Project is one person’s dream to make the world a better place and I want to be a part of that effort.” Dreamer Soup (Sue) Daugherty said, “I believe that The Smooch! Project is the closest thing to world peace that I will see in my lifetime. Not that I wouldn’t love world peace of course . . . But hey, I’m 54! The Smooch — LOVE. COMMUNITY. HEALING. What’s more important than that?” The Dream Team is a remarkable group of people. I am a very lucky photographer. Truly.
We’re looking for new Dreamers for 2011. Do you have an interest in joining the team? The more people we have working on this effort, the sooner we accomplish the goal: Collecting 10,000 images of the affectionately-inclined from around the world. Your help would be so greatly appreciated. To indicate your interest, simply send an email to me at photogirl@thesmoochproject.com. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!
In the meantime, check out the list of 2010 generous people who served on the Dream Team last year . . .
Becky Pelant: Data entry
Betsy Altheimer: Development & fundraising coach
Glen Booth: Photoshop wizard
Joanne McGibbon: Promotion (Art-o-Mat entries)
Judith James: Fundraising, grantwriting, story editing
Karen Van Wert: Photo assistant, domestic Smooch! shoot development
Lee Wilcox: Facebook and market research
Linda Crawford: Editorial advisor, fundraising
Louisa Hext: Community Bridge Builder, International Smooch! shoot development
Patricia Danielson: Corporate sponsorship development
Randee Baron: Postcard collation, Smooch! shoot manager
Soup (Sue) Daugherty: Travel planning, event planning, fundraising
Suzanne Joyce: Facebook development, data management, research
Tamra Sharp: Office management, fundraising
Vanessa Wilson: Smooch! shoot manager, HR & business advisor
We were totally thrilled to schedule a private Smooch! shoot with the internationally-known Playing for Change (PFC) band while they were here in Minneapolis last month. Their musical vision: to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world — a mission The Smooch! Project whole-heartily shares. PFC has developed a huge international following for good reason: A beautiful message beautifully presented. They have been a role model for us for several years. We want The Smooch! Project to be like them when we grow up! How awesome it was to meet and spend some time with these inspiring people.
Above, PFC band member Peter Bunetta is being smooched by PFC roadie / photographer Lindsay Fishman. More PFC archive pics from this shoot can be seen in The Smooch! Project Archive. Check them out here.
During the shoot, several PFC band members came forward to participate but had no handy partners to smooch. No problem! Trusty members of The Smooch! Project Dream Team (our awesome team of dedicated volunteers) were sooo happy to step up to the challenge! The result: Within the Smooch! archive, you’ll see Ilon Ba (PFC electric guitar) smooching Dreamer Patricia Danielson. You’ll also find Grampa Elliot (PFC vocals / harmonica) getting a smooch from Dreamer Louisa Hext. The Smooch! / PFC archive collection is completed by a photo of Clarence Bekker (PFC vocals / acoustic guitar) being smooched by his PFC roadie / sound tech friend, Melissa Britton. As is usually the case, everybody left their Smooch! shoot smiling. Later that evening, The Smooch! team all sat down to a wonderful concert by this amazing group of talented performers. It was quite an amazing day for The Smooch! Project.
PFC had so much fun, they decided to write about us on the PFC blog,followed by a mention on the PFC Facebook page. That was sooo sah-weet of them! Their doing so introduced The Smooch! Project to more than 170,000 PFC followers from all over the world. We are so grateful to this remarkable group of people for their love and support. Perhaps someday The Smooch! Project will be in a position to return such a great favor. Until then, we can only offer our simple, heartfelt thanks to this wonderful organization. This, plus a great big shout-out: PFC ROCKS!
Which now provides a great segue to our next story . . . .
Mucho thanks to all our Smoochy supporters of 2010
Where do we begin? So many people contributed time, energy, expertise (and — Wow! — sometimes even money!) toward our effort to collect 10,000 images from around the world. Last August, we tallied up all the Smooch! Project Heroes, those open-hearted people who have volunteered over the last four years in support of this effort. All told, the Heroes list exceeded 110 people! Amazing. Even now, the Heroes list continues to grow. We love our Smooch! Project Heroes!
From the Heroes group rise The Smooch! Project Dream Team: Those lovely souls who stepped up once to volunteer and then decided to stick around for awhile. The Dreamers share the vision of collecting 10,000 photographs from around the world. Dreamers form the inner circle of support for this entire effort. Without them, The Smooch! Project could grow only slowly. In 2010, fourteen Dreamers contributed a considerable amount of time and energy toward this effort. The amazing growth of The Smooch! Project is a direct result of the effort of these individuals. Amazingly, almost all of the 2010 Dreamers have once again committed to working on this project for yet another year. These people are a blessing for The Smooch! Project and we are lucky, lucky, lucky to have their support. Thanks so much, Dreamers! A great big smooch to each and every one of you.
Finally, there are the 1,600+ people on the Smooch! email list plus our 260+ Smooch! Facebook Fans. Yup, our group of smoochy supporters is growing and it’s all because of people like YOU. A great big, heart-felt thank you to each and every one of you for your ongoing interest, help and support. We very much appreciate having you along for this exciting ride. Hold on to your seats! 2011 holds amazing promise for The Smooch! Project.
A great and happy new year to all!
Scott Nichols loves art, especially photography. At least, that’s what I recall him telling me almost four years ago when he called me to talk about The Smooch! Project. Scott is also the News Editor for the Eastside Review, aweekly community newspaper covering a Saint Paul, Minnesota neighborhood. At the time, I was living in the downtown neighborhood called Lowertown, which was included in Scott’s coverage area. He had heard of our project and wanted to do a story. It ended up becoming much more than that.
The Fall 2006 St. Paul Art Crawl was coming up and The Smooch! Project was going to be a part of it. Scott was planning to include the upcoming shoot in his next issue. Hooray, I remember thinking. That would be cool. Then he also proposed what I thought was a brilliant idea (IMHO): Why not invite Eastside Review readers to attend the shoot and feature their Smooch! Archive photos and personal stories in later issues of the paper. Wow. Didn’t I say BRILLIANT? Needless to say, I was totally thrilled.
Over the next three months — 9 issues in all – photos and stories about The Smooch! Project appeared within the pages of Scott’s newspaper. For a project just completing its first year of growth, this coverage was a tremendous boost and very much appreciated. Scott and I occasionally kept in touch for another year but this fell away when I moved to Minneapolis, outside of his newspaper’s coverage area. The Smooch! Project continued to grow.
Now I am working my way back through the collected archive, as I gather and prepare the images to upload onto The Smooch! Project website. Last week, as I was completing more archive photos gathered in 2008, I came across this one:
I had set up a Smooch! shoot at the 2008 Stone Arch Bridge Festival of the Arts, always held during Father’s Day weekend in the Minneapolis. Among the many people I met and photographed during that two-day event, one of them stood out. Here is an image of Scott Nichols, being smooched by his lovely wife, Amy. This was the first time I had ever met this man and to also meet his beautiful family was a real bonus. They were out on a weekend family outing and had no idea that they were going to stumble over The Smooch! Project that day. Now that the project was no longer a subject for his newspaper, Scott was free to become part of a project he had once only written about.
The image, Amy luvs Scott, has been uploaded to the website and is now part of The Smooch! Project Archive online, where it belongs. I was really happy to finally meet him and glad that he found the opportunity to become part of the project. His coverage of this heart-lifting effort to collect 10,000 images of people showing affection to someone they love was an important part of our early years. I have not forgotten and to this day, I remain very grateful for his interest and support.
There is still much more work to be done to complete the current archive. At the moment, I have completed my work on only one of the two days from that shoot but I hope to complete all of the Stone Arch Bridge Festival images soon. My original goal was to finish our work on the images already collected here in Minnesota BEFORE we headed out on our first Smooch! Project road trip. Not gonna happen. We’re about 75 percent there: currently 740 of almost 1,100 images are now online. But — exciting news: We are leaving for . . . .
In less than a week, we will be embarking on the very first (and very exciting, of course!) Smooch! Project road trip. We’ve selected Detroit for several reasons, the primary one being that we consider this city to be ground zero for the financial challenges we have all be facing here in the United States. Hopelessness and senseless violence is a daily occurrence there. We think The Smooch! Project can help. We’ll only be within the city for a couple of days but we plan to connect with as many people on the ground as we can to prepare for a later return trip to begin a larger, more focused effort. We’ll be holding at least one shoot to collect a few representative images as well and come back home. Then we’ll have everything we need to write a rock-solid grant proposal. We believe the transformative imagery of The Smooch! Project has the power to heal a community. If our work there can break the cycle and stop even one violent episode, it will be entirely worth the effort. If you’re not on our mailing list to get the updates on our progress, you should be! It’s easy to do. The signup form is in the right hand column of this blog.
More stories to come . . .
Almost four years ago, a terrible thing happened. A child died a month after her Smooch! shoot with her family. Her death was painful and unnecessary, the sad result of extremely poor decisions made by the two adults entrusted with her care. Both of these people are now in prison. They are going to be there a very long time. One of them has since become my friend. With her knowledge and permission, I’ve decided to write this story. My relationship to Julie is an important one to share because it illustrates a vital lesson offered by The Smooch! Project.
This image is called Julie luvs Cadence. (No, Cadence is not the child who died.) I refer to this image as ‘my mermaid photo.’ This was a very early Smooch! shoot which was set up outside, something I no longer do now that I use studio lights. As I was preparing to take this photo, an updraft gently moved through the set. It lifted Julie’s and Cadence’s hair and made this photo appear as if they were underwater. I clearly remember snapping the shutter, fervently hoping I had captured that instant. Later, when I was home reviewing all the pics I had collected that day, I came upon it again. This photo hit my heart so powerfully that I literally burst into tears. I was amazed and grateful that I had somehow managed to capture such a beautiful image. From that moment forward, I made a personal goal regarding all my future shoots. If I could manage to capture even one photo as beautiful as this during each Smooch! shoot, collecting that single image would make the shoot worth the entire effort, even if all the other photographs were terrible or even accidentally destroyed. Even after 80+ Smooch! shoots, I still wait patiently at every shoot, to see and capture the single photo that — if all else failed — would make the day’s effort worthwhile. So far, I have never been disappointed.
This image has been hidden from public view since 2006. I removed all photographs of this family from my website because of the controversy surrounding the death of 12-year-old Jordan. Understandably, there was a lot of public anger regarding this tragedy and The Smooch! Project was accidentally caught up in it. (For more specific info, read this story about a Hero who helped me get through it.) I did this so the media could not use these images to fan the flames of outrage already swirling throughout the community. This family was going through enough as it was. But it also meant that, in addition to mourning the loss of Jordan, I also mourned the loss of sharing this photograph with a public audience.
At the time, The Smooch! Project was also pulled from an art show because of the controversy. Not a very big deal to me. Frankly, my grief over Jordan’s death was far more keen. Opportunities to exhibit work come and go and I knew there would be many others in the future. The controversy would eventually disappear and I could go on with my work. My life returned to normal. Imagine my surprise to receive a letter from Julie six months later, offering an apology to me for her role in the loss of that exhibition.
I had read the accounts of the trial, which described Julie’s grief-filled remorse over her role in Jordan’s death. She publicly accepted her responsibility and had received a lengthy sentence. She had also given up custody of her three children, including little Cadence. Now she had personally apologized to me. I felt a strong need to talk with her. Our lives had been briefly tangled together in such a poignant way. I wrote back to her to say if she wanted me to visit, she need only ask. I registered with the prison, which ran a background check, and was added to the approved visitor list. I waited for Julie’s reply, which arrived three months later. She wrote she didn’t know if I still wanted to come but I could if I wished. “I’m here,” she wrote, “and I’ll be here for some years to come.” I visited her for the first time in August 2009.
Yes, it was scary, going there. And, yes, it was awkward and uncomfortable at first. But not any longer. Julie and I have developed an ease between us during our meetings, enough so for me to ask her permission to publish the photo above once again. It’s now back in the online archive, where it belongs. Julie also gave me permission to write and publicly speak about our shared history and our growing friendship. Because it is important. Because it illustrates something powerful. Because it is something I want everyone who loves The Smooch! Project to truly understand.
Here is why I wanted to meet Julie, what I said to her during our first meeting, and now want to say to you as well. This is the point of this entirely far-too-long blog entry: We ALL make mistakes. It’s part of being human. Personally, I can recall several things I have done over my 50+ years that I deeply regret. Some of them can still cause me deep shame. I wish I could do them over, but none of us have that option. I sincerely hope that I never someday find myself in a position where I cause the death of a child, either through willful neglect, or poor decision-making, or even by accident. So far, I’ve been spared that pain.
Julie knows she did a terribly stupid thing. I do not feel she is an evil person. I believe she sincerely regrets her role in that tragedy. She was convicted of murder, lost all rights to her three children, and will now spend 20+ years in prison because of it. When she regains her freedom, she’ll still be carrying all this with her for the rest of her life. Just like you and I carry our past — good and bad –with us. This is part of what being human means.
All affectionately-inclined people are welcome to participate in The Smooch! Project. Because I have made both good and bad decisions in my own life, this tells me that the archive contains images of sinners as well as saints. Because of my own personal experience, I also know that there is at least a little part of good as well as the despicable in each and every one of us. Julie is now my friend. Her photo belongs within The Smooch! Project Archive for the same reason as every other photo there: Because she is capable of love and decided to demonstrate that with daughter Cadence. The images in The Smooch! Project Archive are designed to help us focus on our human similarities, not our differences. I am very happy to have Julie luvs Cadence back in the archive where it belongs. You can see it here. Happy Mother’s Day, Julie. Happy Mother’s Day to every mom out there in the world!
Some days it can seem like accomplishing even the smallest thing takes a huge amount of effort. Then I consider the self-assigned task I have placed before me: Collect 10,000 images of the affectionately-inclined from around the world. Whew. That’s a bit of a mind bender. Especially when the effort also includes editing 1,000+ archive images gathered over the past four years and preparing them for upload to the archive on The Smooch! Project website. It can sometimes feel like a slow, slogging march toward a future that seems so far away.
But I know we are making progress. We’ve got a good team of volunteers working on the task. As I’ve told several people over the last few months, I feel like we’ve been pushing a boulder uphill for the last four years and I am getting a strong sense that we are very near the summit. I can’t see it clearly, of course, because I am still behind the boulder pushing. But the light around the edges seems to be getting brighter. More and more people are stepping up and adding their strength to the task. Someday soon, we’ll reach the top and that boulder will begin to quickly roll down the other side of the mountain. Then our task will be to keep up with the darn thing as it builds speed and momentum. Then, of course, we’ll have a whole ‘nuther set of challenges!
In the meantime, we continue our effort to complete the current collection of archive images and get them online for everyone who is so patiently waiting to see them. Progress is being made. Here’s an example:
This is my friend Ya Landa, being smooched by her youngest son, Dale. This photo was collected during Smooch! Shoot #5, in May 2006. You can see the image still needs editing. For example, this shoot is where I realized that my backdrop needed a light-proof liner. We had set up the backdrop against a picket fence. See the sunlight leaking through, outlining the wooden slats? Sigh. So much to learn! But that was part of the process. The Smooch! Project grew up here in the Twin Cities and after four years of mistakes, we think we know what we are doing. Most of the time.
This photograph is now being edited in preparation for its final upload to The Smooch! Project website. I’ve included it here not only to demonstrate that we are working our way through the historical photos in the archive, but to highlight the contribution made to The Smooch! Project made by Ya Landa. Four years ago, I asked for her help. I had just begun collecting images for this brand new art project and I was concerned that all the people I had photographed to date were all white like me. Hardly representative of the community I wanted to include in the project. I spoke with Ya Landa about it and, within ten seconds flat, I got a personal invitation to attend her family’s BBQ coming up the next weekend. She and her beautiful relatives welcomed me, fed me, and allowed me to take their photographs that day. They did not turn out as well as I would have liked but that was entirely the fault of the photographer, certainly not the subjects.
Over the last four years, there have been many people who have helped and nurtured The Smooch! Project effort.Ya Landa was one of the first to do so. For her support, I am sincerely grateful. It is people like her who have greatly contributed to the making of The Smooch! Project. I no longer regard this project as a personal effort. To me, The Smooch! Project has truly become a community art project. (Frankly, I think it always was but it just took me awhile to understand this. Guess I’m a bit slow sometimes.) For this, we all have Ya Landa to thank. Just wanted to be sure you knew.
January 2010 was tough. Really tough. Harder even than December, when I was part of a support team helping a friend who was dying. Renie was gone at the end of December. No more hanging out, reading together. No more flashes of happiness amidst the pain. Just the dreary aftermath following a person’s death: the photo display prep, the memorial gathering, the sadness mixed with laughter. For me, January was a time of quiet and recovery, my work on The Smooch! Project on a slow idle. But all things pass. My passion for the project has returned and we’re getting back up to speed once again. We’re back to working on the task of preparing all 1,000+ archive images for display on the project website. The image below is a good example:
Cheryl luvs Patrick is an excellent sample image from the early years of The Smooch! Project. This photo was collected during the May Day Celebration at Powderhorn Park on May 7, 2006. The project was just two months old and still evolving. We were shooting outdoors, using natural light. I remember the day as partly cloudy and the brilliant summer sun was wreaking havoc on the photo exposures. I am still sorting through the 470 images collected that day of sunburned, happy people. Reviewing all these photos has been pretty hilarious, as I can literally see how little art direction I was giving to participants. Frankly, I didn’t know what I was yet looking for. As a result, my direction to each couple was simply, “OK, now smooch!” Which everyone quite willingly did, of course, but it often turned into a smooching, laughing bedlam of activity. Photographs like this lovely example were captured more by accident than by design. My luck at snapping photos like this were the encouragement that led me onward. Reviewing them later helped me refine the vision of The Smooch! Project.
This was Smooch! shoot #3. As of December 2009, there have been more than 80 shoots, each one a new location and new lighting. Our current task is to take all the archive images collected over this three year period and do our best to make them seamlessly appear as if they were all shot at the time. A tall order! But we’re giving it our best. Stay tuned!
On the advice of a very dear friend (who was also going to be there), I signed up for a Speaker Expo event — which could be best described as speaker speed dating. There were dozens of speakers present, each of us prepared to give a 15-minute sample of our best effort to the dozens of other attendees whose job it was to find new speakers for their organizations over the coming year. I was not as well prepared as I had wished to be, largely due to the fact that I was still recovering from a bout of food poisoning a few days earlier. But I did my best and, in the end, The Smooch! Project itself saved the day, as I had hoped. At the end of my presentation, I was amazed to find myself on the receiving end of a standing ovation. I was so surprised, all I could do was laugh. Two experienced speakers attended as well and even THEY were standing. How heartening for a newbie presenter like me! I still think of it with amazement. The day after the event, I emailed each of these experienced pros. I had been trying to tell my friends about the wonderful thing that had happened and when I got to the part where these two stood up, I didn’t really know why they decided to do so. Why did you do that, I asked. Within ten minutes of my sending each email, the speaker called me. They each had been blown away by the power of the images and the sincere message behind the effort. These two are now my mentors and friends. They love The Smooch! Project and have offered to help me get my presentation act together. What an amazing project. And what a lucky photographer I am!
Listen: Got any ideas on where a presentation about The Smooch! Project might be welcome? If so, just let me know. I’m told I’m pretty good. laugh.
The Minnesota Smooch! shoots have now ended. It’s time to both look to the future as well as the past. In addition to preparing to get the project ‘out of town’ in 2010, I am busy working my way through all the historical images collected for the project over the last four years. The goal is to prepare all archive images for upload to the website. What a trip down memory lane! The photo here, called Chris luvs Captain Howdy, is drawn from the very first public Smooch! shoot, held in the community room of the downtown Saint Paul apartment building I was living in at the time. The date was April 29, 2006. I had put up a few posters in the building’s mail room. I had no idea if anyone would show up. I was surprised. Not only did 17 people walk in to have their photos taken, among them were six dogs and even a cat.
Captain Howdy seemed, at most, tolerant of Chris. But only just so. Turns out that Chris had borrowed the dog from a friend in the building, just so he could have something to smooch and participate in the shoot. If my memory is correct, Chris was an aspiring model and any photos he could get of himself were useful for his budding career. I asked him if we could take the harness off the dog but he declined. If we did, he said, he wouldn’t have anything to hold on to and the dog would run away. Here, Captain Howdy looks longingly at the door while Chris tries in vain to plant one on his cheek. There was a small group of onlookers in the room as I was taking this photo. The camera flashed. The image captured. We all laughed. Captain Howdy was finally free to go, much to his great relief. Even at its very beginning, The Smooch! Project brought humor and smiles to participants and viewers alike, as long as you don’t count Captain Howdy.
It is very hard to sort through the historical photos for several reasons. For one thing, I didn’t know what I was doing. Digital photography was a new art form for me. My equipment was substandard, especially when compared with what I am currently using. I offered very little art direction to participants, since I was exploring and I did not yet know what I was looking for. Happy accidents, like Chris luvs Captain Howdy, kept me at it. They provided encouragement. They showed me what worked and what didn’t. Since then, I have learned much. My success rate at capturing quality photos suitable for The Smooch! Project Archive has increased to nearly 100 percent. Images like this one helped me shape the project into what it is today. Even so, it is difficult to look at these historical photos without the critical eye they helped me gain. It can be painful! Artists often destroy their early work, as it does not reflect their current standards. I struggle with the urge to delete as well. My wise friends counsel patience, forgiveness, and tolerance. Good advice I plan to heed through the editing process.
. . . which are too numerous to mention in detail. I’ll list of few of the irons we’ve got in the fire:
- I am continuing my effort to interest Ellen Degeneres in The Smooch! Project. Slow going but perseverance may pay off!
- I will begin offering public presentations about The Smooch! Project very soon. If you have suggestions on possible speaking opps, I would welcome hearing from you.
- I am setting up an internship program for students with Photoshop skills to bring archive to its highest level of quality. Let your photo student friends know about this opp to help polish a collection of images destined to become a historical legacy.
- We are building a budget and seeking business partnerships interested in supporting the effort to reach the goal: 10,000 photographs from around the U.S., and perhaps from other parts of the world as well.
Exciting days ahead. Stay tuned!
Annie, the beautiful Golden Retriever shown above, doesn’t like peanut butter. Or, more likely, she didn’t like me. I could clearly see she would have much rather been anywhere else then sitting on top a small table with big lights pointing at her. Peanut butter is an indispensable tool used to create an enticing target on an accommodating pet owner’s face. Usually their dog will happily lick away while I madly snap photograph after photograph. I presented Annie with a small cup of the delectable stuff, expecting her immediate approval. Surprisingly, she disdainfully sniffed it, turned her head away and refused to look at me. (Dogs usually do that when they are mad or irritated.) Momentarily stumped, David and I decided that cheese might be a better choice. Luckily, the shoot was at the Wilde Roast Cafe and the kitchen staff was very accommodating. But Annie was ho-hum about this tasty snack too, unless she had it safely between her teeth. As you can see in David luvs Annie (who also luvs cheese), Annie deigned to look my way as long as David held a piece of cheese in front of my lens. In this shot, our team timing was off and I accidentally captured the cheese in the shot as well. Bingo! A happy accident. I now had another humor image to add to The Smooch! Project Archive.
But there is another story here, a much darker tale. David had mentioned something while we worked together that made me think a little internet research was due. Turns out this beautiful dog is the much-publicized Orphan Annie, found in December 2008 lying on a snowbank along a Western Minnesota road. She had been callously shot twice and left for dead. With the help of the members of the non-profit RAGOM (Retrieve A Golden Of Minnesota) and lots of surgeries at the U of MN Veterinary Hospital, Annie now thrives in David’s care. She has undoubtedly seen far too much of the inside of a veterinary hospital in her short life. Many dogs (including Annie, I believe) feel they are at the vet’s during a Smooch! shoot. Most dogs lose their anxieties when food is presented. Not Annie. She was clearly not going to be her happy self until she was off that little table and on her way out the door. I told David that Annie was a lucky dog to have ended up with him. He paused, looked quietly at her and said, “I’m the lucky one.” I feel lucky too, to have a photo of Annie and David in The Smooch! Project Archive. What a beautiful representation of the well-known adage, ‘Love Heals.’ Thank you, David, for sharing Orphan Annie with The Smooch! Project.
Far too much to state here. It’s almost Thanksgiving. Time for everyone to wind down for a bit. Look for lots of details in my next post. Good holidays, everyone!
November 2009 may be recalled in the history of The Smooch! Project as the month of endings as well as new beginnings. For example, the Smooch! Ellen gallery has now been removed from public view on the project website (No worries! There are several ideas being reviewed as to their future display.) My Flat Ellen cutout is officially retired. The silly thing sits on my desk, propped up against the wall behind my laptop, peeking over the top of it as I type these words. The photo I chose to include in this post is significant in relationship to Smooch! Ellen. Terry luvs Eric, from the Smooch! Archive category Together: Old Marrieds (21+ years) was collected during the last shoot that included Flat Ellen. It was near the end of the shoot. Like most people who decide to participate in The Smooch! Project, Terry and Eric stumbled over the shoot as they were exploring the Midtown Global Market, where we were located. Obviously, I succeeded in talking them into participating in the project. Terry also decided to smooch my silly Ellen cutout. As we discussed the Smooch! Ellen effort, Terry made an interesting comment. “You mean I might be the last person to smooch Ellen?” she asked, laughing. Since no one else did so after Terry and Eric left, this turned out to be true.
I am now working behind the scenes to interest the Ellen team in supporting The Smooch! Project in some way. Some significant progress has been made but it is important for me to continually remind myself that nothing is ever certain. Even though I and several of my close comrades have great optimism about this effort, there is nothing confirmed to report here. Be certain: Once we have a final answer, it will be posted here and elsewhere. Stay tuned!
As another example of endings and beginnings, the last Minnesota Smooch! shoot is coming up on Saturday, Nov 21. Check the calendar at the right for the details. As I’ve stated several times over the last few months, the entire archive is filled with the beautiful faces of my friends, neighbors, and fellow Twin Citians. We are blessed with an overabundance of Minnesotans in the archive! The time has come to focus our entire attention on getting the project ‘out of town’ to collect beautiful images elsewhere. (More to come on this in later posts.) If you have a hankering to be included in The Smooch! Project and have not done so already, next Saturday will be your final opportunity. I hope to see you and your loved ones there!
The wild toboggan ride to collect images of silly people smooching a goofy cutout of Ellen Degeneres is almost over: Three solid weeks of M-F, 7am-3pm Smooch! Ellen shoots plus a few weekend shoots through the month of October have been completed. The cutout of Ellen is officially retired. There is still work to be done to prepare the latest collection of photos. The last set of official Smooch! Ellen certificates (each one displaying one of the Ellen photos, the names of the participants and including a personal handwritten message to the star, if provided) are being prepared for shipment to Warner Bros. Studios this week. A final tally will be included in the next post to this blog.
The final full week of Smooch! Ellen shoots were held at a new North Minneapolis coffee shop called 42nd Avenue Station. Of the three Twin Cities locations for week long Smooch! Ellen shoots, the one at this small cafe was the most well attended. Sixty people were photographed and a total of 34 Smooch! Ellen pics were gathered, including the one shown above: Crazy Looking Connie luvs Ellen. Connie Beckers normally does not look crazy. Actually, a longtime North Minneapolis artist activist and the Executive Director of the Northside Arts Collective, she was the driving force behind the astonishing number of people who agreed to do a wacky thing: Smooch a cardboard cutout of a television on camera. Remarkable. You’ll find out more about Connie soon, as she is going to be the next featured Smooch! Hero in the email to go out in a week. If you are not yet on the mailing list, be sure to sign up so you can keep up with all things Smooch!
By the end of this week, the fourth and final shipment of official Smooch! Ellen certificates will be on their way to the television star. Not a peep from anyone in California at the moment but we are FAR from done knocking on that door. Plans are afoot. Stay tuned for further developments.
We are winding down the effort to collect any more photographs within our beautiful state of Minnesota. As you’ll note in the statistics to the right, we have photographed almost 2,500 people — all of them Minnesotans! Our focus now turns toward getting the project ‘out of town.’ Two more public shoots remain, both on Saturdays in November. If you live here in Minnesota, wish to become a part of a historic art effort and haven’t yet participated, you and your loved ones have only two more opportunities.
A huge THANK YOU! to all the people who have participated so far. Literally, you have made The Smooch! Project what it is today. Including the latest tally, the archive now includes more than 1,000 images. Still a long way to go in the effort to collect 10,000 images but we have made an incredible start. Your continuing support has been very much appreciated.
I love and support The Smooch! Project because, because, because, because, because! Because of the wonderful things it does! (Sung to the tune of ‘Off To See The Wizard’)
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