Mastering the Meander Challenge
By their nature, creative meanders come in nearly infinite forms. And that describes the variety of submissions we received for the first-ever Meander Challenge on the first annual National Meander Day. One member of our judging team said it best, “I think it’s validating how lovely of a microcosm these submissions are.” From photographs and videos to haiku and song, it was heartwarming to be reminded of the astounding generative capability that exists among us. To all of those who participated, please know you are seen and highly valued. That said, we selected five submissions to highlight this year’s creative meanderers.
Meander Master Award - Charlotte Stone, Fairfield, CT | New York, NY
Charlotte is a street photographer whose work is currently exhibited at the NYC Annual Exhibition of Women Street Photographers. Street photographers are, by definition, meanderers. They wander with requisite receptivity for spontaneous encounters and random incidents which they capture on camera at a decisive moment. Charlotte has a playful eye which can spot and showcase the incongruous. Online, you can see Charlotte’s artwork on Instagram @seastonestreet
In addition to photographing action of “the streets,” Charlotte is drawn to the beach and waterfront. “I took this photo while I was experimenting with exposures. The result is—what looks to me like a horizon was really a close-up of a wave on the beach at dawn,” she said.
A meander – the actual serpentine shape of a river - includes both this way and that way – forward and back. Two opposites that exist at once. A paradox. A creative meander also embraces simultaneous alternatives. Charlotte’s photo is a visual paradox. It brings the viewer’s mind back and forth – to horizon and to wave – and it does so with soft elegance.
Mondo Meander Award - Randy Siegel, Asheville, NC | St. Simons Island, GA
Since 2012, Randy has taught and written on relationships as spiritual practice. He has authored five books and is also a skilled visual artist. In addition to writing, Randy paints. Painting mostly psychological portraits, his work has been called "postcards from the psyche." For more information on his art and writing, visit LinkToRandy.com.
As is evident from Randy’s most recent work, he is influenced by his love for outsider art, Jungian psychology, and spirituality. It’s been said that he, “delves into the subconscious-and at times the collective unconscious-to challenge viewers to think, feel, and perhaps remember something of themselves once forgotten.” Most recently, he has pointed his palette further inward and his art reflects that internal meander.
He said, “For quite some time, I've been seeking to break through to something new in my artwork. The Meander Challenge helped me discover a link between two of my creative loves: writing and painting. I was surprised to learn there’s a word for it—asemic writing. Asemic writing is a form of abstracted calligraphy; it’s drawing that resembles writing but doesn’t employ words—unless so damaged they cannot be read. Used by artists and poets around the world, asemic writing leaves interpretation to the viewer. For me, it’s a form of “spirit writing”—a way to connect to that small, intuitive voice inside, what some may call “the divine self.” It’s like running barefoot on holy ground. This is a painted prayer completed as the world begins to celebrate the launch of the new vaccine. The year 2021 holds much hope; may we enter it with renewed gratitude, faith, and service.”
Mondo Meander Award - Tom Painting, Atlanta, GA
A skillful creative meander can be brief, simple and, at the same time, filled with promise. Haiku is about “articulating moments keenly perceived” in very short form.
Tom Painting is a haiku poet. You can see some of his work here. Tom also teaches junior high at the Paideia School in Atlanta, Georgia. Since 2000, his students have had winning haiku in the Nicholas Virgilio Memorial Haiku Contest. Tom’s own haiku have appeared annually since 1998 in The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, published by Red Moon Press. He has received recognition in the Haiku Society of America’s Brady and Henderson contests for haiku and senryu, and in its haibun contest. His work has also appeared in Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years and Baseball Haiku: The Best Haiku Ever Written About the Game, each published by W. W. Norton. Tom is an avid birder and enjoys hiking in out-of-the-way places. You could say he is a “natural” meanderer.
Classic haiku form is a poem consisting of three lines of five, seven and five syllables respectively. But in Tom’s words, “Some of the best haiku break patterns. A Monoku is a type of poem made up of a single horizontal line. Monoku emerged as an independent style of poetry in the 1970s. Unlike the traditional Haiku, Monoku features a single line consisting of seventeen syllables or fewer.” Here is Tom’s Meander Challenge Monoku:
Meander Mojo Award - Venkat Rao, Chicago, IL
Venkat is arguably the world’s leading advisor on Microsoft’s Power Platform technology – a software suite that enable organizational creativity and digital transformation at scale. Venkat is Director, Power Platform Go To Market Lead - North America with Avanade – a joint venture of Microsoft and Accenture. He is also part of Avanade's Digital Innovation Studios and works closely with talented UI/UX designers and researchers to create human-centric solutions. In his “spare time,” he created a blog to promote assistive technology. Assistive technology helps disabled people achieve greater independence by enabling them to perform tasks they were formerly unable to accomplish.
Venkat took on the Meander Challenge with full force. He provided a body of work that included a memoir of his meandering, meandering stories and a video that demonstrates how to meander when one is isolated in an apartment due to a pandemic raging on the city streets below. While Venkat is not a professional artist or videographer, one of our judges said of his video, “It actually explores meandering traffic, and it seems like a fine art project you might see in a modern art museum.” Here’s the video and what Venkat had to say about it:
“Meander without Meandering: Standing still and observing our immediate surrounding is a goldmine when it comes to purposeful purposelessness. Our immediate surroundings give us so many opportunities to meander and perhaps, even get lost. There is so much happening right in front of us. There are so many types of people, objects, movement, living spaces, lights, natural elements, patterns, and behavior around us. Taking our time to observe all of them -either one by one or collectively –and connecting random dots, can help us discover different trends, patterns, and connections that we typically do not even consider.”
Meander Mojo Award - Brett Newski, Milwaukee, WI
Brett is a North American nomad, songwriter, podcaster, illustrator and alternative singer-songwriter from Milwaukee, WI. In 2011, Brett toured Southeast Asia alone for six months while completing his first solo LP, In Between Exits, in budget hostels and apartments across Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Korea and the Philippines. During that time, he performed 30 shows in unconventional venues including Couchsurfer Apartments, a Vietnamese convenience store, an underground Korean record shop, and residential rooftops in Hong Kong while also playing club shows. During his time living in Vietnam he wrote advertising jingles for Saatchi & Saatchi. Brett was recently on tour as the opening act for the Violent Femmes.
In 2020, Brett launched a podcast Dirt from the Road which discusses musicians’ strangest road stories and dives into maintaining sound mental health as an artist/traveler. Guests have included many well-known performers like Barenaked Ladies’ co-founder Steven Page and folk-punk master, Frank Turner. He is a troubadour non-pareil – a troubadour’s troubadour. For more about Brett, check out https://brettnewski.com
Brett has written at least 100 songs to date including this meander-ish one which he created on 12/21:
Listen here:
Meander Mojo Awards - Motte Thomas, Santa Fe, NM | Brunswick, GA
Motte Thomas’s art career was launched upon graduation from The Atlanta College of Art and further studies at the University of Houston’s Glassell School of Art. As with most successful creatives, Motte’s art career meandered. He took a 10-year hiatus from the professional art scene from 2000 to 2010 and returned with renewed vigor and a further matured drawing and painting style. For more about Motte and his work, see http://www.mottethomas.com
This artist’s statement of purpose – and his submission – capture the fervent optimism of creative meandering, “Behold as I transform my studio into an Art Rocket Ship, set to explore the unknown universe of cosmically creative new worlds of artworks beyond the scope of anyone’s imagination! The sky isn’t even the limit, I’m shooting for the stars, FULL SPEED AHEAD!”
In Summary
Linear less.
Meander more.