A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I'd become quite interested in the practice of art journaling. The truth is, I've been obsessed, looking for inspiration everywhere, particularly on the internet. And as often happens with surfing the web, one link inevitably led to another, and eventually I stumbled across The 1000 Journals Project.

The premise of this amazing project was simple: started by an anonymous artist in San Francisco (known intriguingly only as 'Someguy'), 1000 blank journals were purchased and distributed randomly, with the simple instructions that the finder of the journal add to one of its pages, and then pass the journal along to be completed by the next person. Someguy gave journals to friends, left some randomly in coffeehouses, and gave some to people who requested them via his website. The result was intriguing -- the journals traveled all over the world, and eventually developed a story all of their own. Some of the artists and writers who contributed to the pages e-mailed Someguy with their entries, and the best of them resulted in a book. A friend of mine purchased this book for me, and I spent my flight to Dulles last week pouring through its pages. I love the thought of these journals traveling the world, falling in the hands of these seemingly random people. How fantastic, I thought, that each of these journals touched all these lives in some way.

And then I had an idea.

I thought it would be really cool to start our own journal project -- but as a variation, invite people to add only inspiring, kind or beautiful images or thoughts to the journal. Also, have the contributors be bloggers, or be willing to upload images of their contribution -- so we could sort of 'follow' the path of the journal as it goes from person to person on the web. And then, once the journal was filled, it could be given to someone who really could use the comfort provided by its contents.

Of course, my idea is full of holes: who gets to decide who receives the final product? What if someone adds to more than one page? What if someone just ... doesn't contribute? What if it never gets filled? What if the journal gets lost? What if this is just a hare-brained idea, and no one will want to have anything to do with it?

I've been struggling with these questions for the last week or so, and I've finally decided that somehow, it'll work itself out. So this past weekend, I went out and purchased a moleskine, and I added my contribution to its first page. And now, I'm just going to put this idea out there, and see what happens. So, if you wouldn't mind:

a) How do you think the final recipient of the journal should be determined? Should it be given to someone specific? Should it just be left somewhere publicly by the final contributor for someone to find randomly?

b) Would you be interested in contributing to something like this? You don't have to be an artist (God knows I'm not), you could just write your favourite quote or saying or just anything inspirational. You just need to be willing to pass it on -- either randomly on your blog, or however you wish.

c) Should there be a central place where we can view all the entries, in addition to bloggers' sites? Maybe a flickr pool, or something?

I'd love to have your input. Also, if you're interested in participating, please leave a comment below. I'll probably let Alex pick a name from a hat to determine who the next contributor will be.

I think this could be pretty cool. Let's see what happens.

Edited to add: I love the enthusiasm! So much so, I would hate to think that the people who have expressed an interest wouldn't be allowed to participate. For this reason, I need to ask another question:

If you were to participate, would you be okay with incurring the postage to send the journal on to the next contributor? Keep in mind that some of the contributors live in countries other than where you live, so international postage may apply. Also, the journal weighs... close to a pound, I'm guessing?

Let me know if you would amend your expression of interest based on the above. If everyone says they don't want to pay the postage, understand that not everyone may get to participate.

Thanks!