Selling...

Heading down I-275 on a Saturday morning, we crossed the Howard Frankland bridge towards Pinellas County, hauling the Airstream trailer behind. A couple gallons later, we arrived at downtown St. Petersburg, to peddle our artists’ books as outsiders during the annual Triathlon at the Vinoy Park, a venue sure to bring people traffic. Since many at the event would be obviously preoccupied with athletic things, we focused on the spectators. My first encounter was with a little woman named Clarice. She was there to watch her grandson. Clarice said she never went to museums, but she collected figurines and her walls weren’t covered with any art, but with photos of her 13 children and their children. She liked to line them up in staggered grids of 13 by 13. After she browsed a while, I showed her Judy Gelles’ Florida Family Portraits, a book containing portraits and photos of the author’s family taken every year for 20 years.
Ah,” she said, “I wish I was able to do that.”
I asked her what she meant.
“I wish I was able to get everybody together, long enough to capture it. I’m stuck getting individual photos sent to me in cards and I have to line them up next to each other. I hate all those spaces between.”
After minutes of looking, she came back to it and bought it.
I sold about 12 different books that day. I enjoyed being repeatedly surprised by seeing who lingered over what and which books were more saleable than I first expected.
-- time traveling Moving Thought bookmobile participant

Anticipation...

I have never experienced such a thrill as the Moving Thought Book Mobile! Touring around the city of Tampa in the 31' Airstream trailer brought me back to the days of my childhood, camping and touring, not to mention a nostalgia for those elementary school days as I and all the other 3rd graders anxiously awaited the arrival of the book mobile. Seeing the sea of people proudly create their very own artist’s book was well worth the long, hot, late spring days of Florida. Bringing art culture to an
audience who would otherwise never be exposed to it was a privilege that not many are able to say they have had. -- time traveling "Moving Thought" project participant.
* Arthouse opening, USF, School of Fine Art & Art History, Friday March 28
Saturday March 29th -- [no venue]
Sunday March 30th -- [no venue]
* Friday April 4th - "All Power to the Imagination" conference, New College, Sarasota,
* Saturday, April 5th - Flight 19 artists' space during the "Loud Art" exhibition (bookmaking workshop: "100 Books for 100 People," ongoing)
* Sunday April 6th - Safety Harbor Public Library
* Friday April 11th -- ["Neighborhood Watch" screening series in Seminole Heights]
* Saturday April 12th -- ["Neighborhood Watch" screening series in Seminole Heights] Sunday April 13th -- [no venue]
* Hillsborough Community College for the Ybor Festival of the Moving Image: Friday, April 18 and Saturday, April 19th -- [no venue; Flight 19? visiting speaker from Mobilivre project]
* Sunday, April 20th -- Hillsborough Community College for the Ybor Festival of the Moving Image (cyanotype workshop)
* April 25th - "Laminate Your Scrapbook!" - "Mobile Thought" trailer installed at CAM, opens 7-9pm

A mobile artists’ bookstore and experimental laboratory...

…rolling through Tampa Bay like a stormcloud in April. Like Billy Pilgrim, we imagine that we have done this all before. We need only to recollect this great creative adventure. What happened? What do we remember? It was a brilliant sunny weekend day, shining on the parking lot at Publix as the “Moving Thought” vehicle pulled up. A mob of screaming kids rushed inside, nearly filling the Airstream with a squirming, squealing tangle of excited humanity. They were there from the Seminole Heights community arts workshop, come to make books. When the kids realized the workshop was outside, the trailer emptied as quickly as it had filled. Adults, their parents, stood by shaking their heads and smiling. With this energized crowd, “100 Books for 100 People” – our announced goal, looked as if it might be achieved this very afternoon.
P.S. A great site, another "trip" is -- Les Sentiers de l’Utopie | Paths Through Utopia A 7 month journey through Europe in search of Utopian ways of living http://www.utopias.eu/paths/