Email your submissions to submissions@essenceexpressions.com and we’ll post them!
Please note: Any art you submit to the MackEvents can be used by Essence Interactive, Inc and Allison Mack for any purpose.

So of all the cats in the world I pick the one who has a rare case of anemia that doesn’t have any sort of solution or predictable rhythm.
I swear he was put on this earth to teach me how to care about something outside of myself.
To take care, simply because I care.
What a lesson!
xo
a

Have you ever caught yourself doing that? It’s so ridiculous. Like, why not just tell your friends you ate the chocolate cake? Why lie about the way you lost your front tooth? Somehow the story is so much more compelling than the truth. Lie. What are the implications of such a habit? No trust from anyone. That is one.

Huh, so to transition lies to storytelling… maybe I use my powers for good rather than evil. I will practice telling stories. I bought a book. Yes, I believe there is a book for everything, and I bought one for a daily writing practice.
It is called “A Writer’s Book of Days“. It was written by a woman named Judy Reeves and it gives you a writing exercise every day.

So September 1, I started.

I thought I would share what I write with you all and if you like, you can write along and post as well! Sort of like an online writing group! Yay community!

Here goes:

September 8th, 2009
_________ is the color I remember.

Orange is the color I remember. Burnt orange. Burnt, vibrant, deep rich orange.
I remember cutting the flesh of a vegetable that reminded me of skin coated in iodine.
The smell of iron overwhelmed anything having to do with the banana bread baking in the kitchen.
I was 14 and I had just gotten my belly button pierced and iodine was the answer to infection at that point.
So every day I laid down in the living room, and poured the metallic liquid into the button on my belly so as to ward off evil bacteria from the new hole I chose to impose upon my body.
It was back to school time. Autumn in Los Angeles is a time of clearing skies and smokey sunsets.
The Santa Anna winds rush the overly dried desert with fires across the coast line for weeks in the end of August. And everyone is always so surprised.
It happens every year, and yet we have no memory of the past.
Why is it that certain things stick in our minds, burned into the folds of our brain, never to be forgotten, and other things we repeat as though we are on a loop track?
I suppose the enjoyment of living in Malibu supersedes the annual fires that blaze through the properties there.
I think of these things as I enjoy the burn of air that floats around me and twist my belly button ring in and around the internal and external portion of my soulful carrying case.
“I am such a rebel”, I tell myself. “Blake Heron is going to think I am so hot!”. Oh yes, the puncture wound was an attention strategy for a boy. I wanted desperately to be dangerous. To be desired. To be mysterious. And so I had a human pin cushion jam a needle through my abdomen and called it “cool”. Several years later I would repeat this patten with needles and ink. Scarring myself with pigment and indentations on my chest and ankle as a way to disprove my own value and confirm the value I found in the approval of the man next to me.
Just like the people who refuse to acknowledge the annual fires that dance along the Los Angeles coast line. So do I refuse to acknowledge the life time commitment to consistent abnegation of worth or trust for the next cool, confident, powerful person in the room.
Permission, permission to learn, permission to move on, permission to grow.
Permission to explore other places to live that may be equally as beautiful, but without the fires.
Hmm, that’s a thought.

It’s a word I use constantly! All the time! I find myself discussing and calling for compassion as often as I use my name . But what is it? How can I claim to stand for something I can’t define?

Have you ever asked someone to just “be honest”? What is that? Can you define this process for you? Ghandi said (and I am paraphrasing terribly), if you ask someone to do something you would never do yourself it is an inhumane act of enslavement.

So, essentially, does that mean that if I ask someone to “be honest” or “be compassionate” and yet I have no understanding of what this even means to me, that is, in fact, an inhumane act?

Huh? How does that work? I find I spin in circles with this one. If I want a world of compassion and non-violence, and yet I am violent. I will “fight for peace!” What?

Anyway.

Compassion? What is it? Definition to come.

xo
Allison

Submissions are now being accepted to the current MackEvent!

Creative Muse: Write a letter to a stranger

Instructions
Write an anonymous letter to an anonymous person. Place the letter in an obvious location, labeled clearly that it is for anyone to read. Document via any media source that you wish the process of creating the letter and leaving it. You can even hide and take a picture of the stranger reading it if you want! Create art out of any part of the process and submit it!

Send your submissions to submissions@essenceexpressions.com by August 24th!

Note: By submitting your art, you are giving Allison Mack and Essence Interactive, Inc full rights to the digital copy of your submission. Please only submit your original art or a digital representation of your original art.

Write a letter to a stranger and leave it for him or her to find! Take a photo or create other art to depict the process! Between August 10th and August 24th, submit your art to submissions@essenceexpressions.com and we will post it on the site!

Note: By submitting your art, you are giving Allison Mack and Essence Interactive, Inc full rights to the digital copy of your submission. Please only submit your original art or a digital representation of your original art.

It’s funny.  I remember being a little kid and looking at myself in the mirror and thinking, “When I get big, I will have it all together, I will know who I am and I will feel beautiful and confident all the time.”

Well, I am definately big now, in my late 20s in fact, and I am still waiting for the confidence and the beauty! It is so funny, I really thought I would hit a certain age and be “grown up”. Grown up? What is that? Like all of a sudden you don’t play, you don’t explore and ask stupid questions. You know what you are doing and where you are headed. How does that happen? When is it that we decide enough is enough. No more fun for you!

I think I will change the rules. Play all the time.

That is what this year will be about! Playing and relating.

I want to be a better friend, daughter, sister this year. I want to know that the most important part of my life are the people I relate to. The people I love and the people I have a strong distaste for (my mom always told me not to use the word hate!) I am beginning to coagulate as a person. I love that word, but it is true, that is how I feel. I was a runny yolk, bits of me going every which way, not knowing what to stand for, what is important to me. But this is starting to change. I am putting myself (albeit slowly) into hot water and consquently I am hardening, solidifying. Understanding what I want to stand for and why.
It is a cool and interesting process for sure.

I like. I like.

Happy Birthday to me.

With love
Allison

One of Allison’s highest values is humanity. This year, give the gift of love to humanity and create art from it.

Give a gift and show love to someone. Brighten your day. Create art. Create change.

Email your birthday submissions to submissions@essenceexpressions.com and we’ll post them for Allison to see them.
Note: By submitting your art, you are giving Allison Mack and Essence Interactive, Inc full rights to the digital copy of your submission. Please only submit your original art or a digital representation of your original art.

Notes:

Tabby here… some people are asking questions about what to do. This is no different than any other mack event. Artistically portray the theme and submit either the digital art or a digital representation of the art (i.e. a photo of a sculpture). This event is not designed to be a chance to send birthday wishes or create birthday cards with photo manipulations. We are looking for original art work belonging to the theme: Shower someone with love. Email submissions@essenceexpressions.com if you have any questions! Any kind of expression is accepted as long as it portrays the theme, doesn’t violate laws, and is original work. Digital art, photography, written work, scultpure, etc. Have fun!