A Life Unbalanced

The following is a rough draft of the beginnings of my design document for a PechaKucha I am designing:

SECTION 1: Overview

Life balance is a clichéd term these days. It is meaningful albeit overused. In spite of my artistic education and propensities, I chose a technical career. As a result, my day to day work has been skewed to what is often referred to as left-brained. I believe this has taken a toll on my health. Without even being conscious of it, I have tried to compensate for that with my extracurricular activities.

This presentation is focused on one of those activities: making jewelry. I developed this hobby as a young person and retained it throughout my adult life. The reason I chose this topic for my presentation is because I believe that having a creative hobby has been essential for my well-being and I see it as a salvation for many people who are leading an unbalanced life.

I’m hoping to impart to those who listen and watch this presentation that making jewelry can be a relaxing and enjoyable hobby. Although in current history women most often make and wear handmade jewelry, I encourage anyone of any gender to consider this comforting pursuit. I would like to especially appeal to those who have been in technical fields for several years and have very little creative outlets.

Ideally, I would like to inspire people to actually pick up stones and some wire and create their first piece of wearable art. They should be able to see a few rocks in a rock shop and name two or three stones commonly used in jewelry. Those who watch this presentation will be able to report a traditional use or meaning of at least one stone.

Someone in a technical field who is halfway through their career is often stuck in a non-creative rut. My goal is that this particular person, after watching the presentation, will see an opportunity to balance their life in a new way and increase their happiness .

Since the most effective way of garnering people’s interest in this hobby is the visual, this will be a straightforward slide show with a lot of photography. The stones, jewelry and work will speak for themselves. There is no real need to use any technology outside of Microsoft PowerPoint and either Vimeo or YouTube to present the recording. PowerPoint has recently been enhanced considerably and any extras I might need are now doable on that platform. I may manipulate some of the photos using Adobe Photoshop. And I will record using Audacity. It seems to me that simplicity is one of the main tenets of Pecha Kucha and I will stand by that tenet.