2013: In Collaboration

The year has begun in full and as we both race and tread tenderly Into The Dark buoyed with the incoming contributions from the most INCREDIBLE collection of kids and artists, we are excited.
And as ever, still learning!

We are also working on our second MAN Festival and have an awesome line up including the gorgeous new Mother Load project, and a VERY new mother artist. If you would like to be considered for an upcoming festival send us an email with MAN in the title to info@bigkidsmagazine.com

To kick off 2013 we will spend this week in Sydney for days of on-the-floor pagination and BIG dreaming with our two not-so-baby girls in tow. We have a BIG meeting at the Opera House (grin!) and trips planned to various galleries and of course, the beach. My boys have been promised the next trip but this time it will be a girlie escape :)

Even though we are so used to the long distance magazine-making and have certainly developed unspoken telepathic creative processes to enable side by side looking from afar, it is always so wonderful to be hands on in the same room, actually curating, writing, drawing, painting, dreaming and watching the work come to life.

As we head into the making of our FOURTH and FIFTH issue this year, we are joined by a quietly expanding team, namely my mum who is helping us to make very slow motion sense of gst and other such number feats and Lilly's brother who, via the US, supports us in our business renderings.  We tackle every day the demands of a small business and this help is invaluable. BIG is a full time as yet unpaid arts project that does not just publish existing content -  the curation and creating of content means that we are in constant collaboration with each other, with our designers, with international projects and organisations, and with the artists and kids who we invite to participate. The making of this BIG artwork is a side by side project of mammoth proportions! It is incredible to watch it growing so fast from the inside and we are both looking forward to another BIG year :)

Subscribe here and make our day!

Light bodies and grass houses under falling earth. Side by Side collaboration by Lilly Blue and Twyla, age 4

The BIG 'Blogiversary'

It’s our ‘blogiversary’ today, 12months since the first blog post.  How to sum up what has been a huge year leaves me hands perched on the keyboard willing the best telling of a story that has caught us altogether by surprise.

Lilly and I first dived into BIG in September 2010 despite not having seen each other for 12 years-"I do believe we are starting a collaboration without uttering a spoken word".  We called it a making of a magazine blog. And now we have made one. In September 2011 we hit the press, first saw each other after 12 years (via skype) and launched.

The acceleration from initial sketching of ideas to holding the magazine in our hands was fast and full. We talked, jostled, fired and worked – almost all night on occasion. 

Very early scribbles of a cover by Jo (2010) 

"..a little paper house that can be bent into shape and wallpapered with scribblings. / Tiny paper furniture and flower pots made out of the back cover. / Collaborations between little people and illustrators/poets. / Mentoring across the globe between small ones and big ones. / Interviews where the answers are illustrated rather than written. / Children asked the BIG questions about life the universe and everything". (Early scribbles of imagined pages by Lilly, Sept 2010)

BIG Kids magazine is a co-authored and collaborative place. We often agree to put our own stories aside to do the work but the process is underwritten with a mutual understanding of creative practice as rigorous, personal and poetic.

We are so appreciative of your support and of the kids and big kids who continue to encourage and share our dream of positioning the creative arts as a central avenue for processing, responding to, and affecting the world. 

The BIG blog will continue to chart the making of this BIG magazine, share great work on children, artists, projects, creativity and the connections between them, and seek ways to navigate the matrix world of the mother artist. 

The BIG cover artwork by Lilly, age 40 and Humphrey, age 6

We rely solely on magazine sales to get the BIG magazine to print and are now looking to garner support or sponsorship on a greater scale.

You can read the latest review of BIG kids Magazine today on My Book Corner and support us by spreading the BIG word to your friends and SUBSCRIBING.

Jo and Lilly xx

A BIG Explanation

OK.

We hear you.  What exactly is this BIG thing?

BIG
Right now BIG is a blog that shares and reveals the behind the scenes processes and communication of two mother artists at work creating a new magazine for kids and big kids everywhere. We do the BIG work in the slipstream of our lives amid continuing exhibitions, performances, teaching and daily creative practices. The blog is a real time map of the making of the magazine and the evolving BIG world as we image and write our way into it. Posts are variously art gallery, journal entry, book chapter, academic, responsive, curious and clear, featuring;

Pockets of what the printed magazine will look like.

Episodic stories and characters of the BIG world.

Business basics and renderings involved in the making of a magazine.

Insights into the lives of mother artists.

A rare and open view of creative process and collaboration.

Opportunities to contribute artwork and stories online and in print.

Information about creativity and kids.

An inside view of collaborations between artists and kids.

Platforms for creative choice and philanthropic potential.

BIGGER
Immediately BIG becomes bigger than we imagined and we run to catch up with it, writing manifestos at midnight to harbour an evolving BIG vision and lighthouse our future and fire.  

The Flagship gatherer sorts provisions and scrubs the deck. Cleaning and clearing the way for more.