Once again I’ve been making my way through the global scavenger hunt known as GISH. There have been stay-at-home minihunts this year (because of quarantine) but this was the week long hunt that comes along each August. This is my third time around… some things were easier, but mostly it’s a case of diving in and making the best of things…
The list drops on the first day, which tends to be late night/early morning here, as it’s based in the U.S. There are generally over 200 items, with more being added or modified during the week. There’s a mixture of art/craft/writing items, charity donation items, social activist items, or just plain weird stuff… I generally look through the list straight away and choose some, then check it throughout the week for more. It doesn’t seem to matter how often I look at it – I always get to the end and look at other people’s creations, thinking, “What item was that?!”.
If all this sounds interesting, check the website – you should be able to sign up soon for next year (or possibly some smaller ones before that?).
I had a lot of fun, as I always do. I was in the same team as last year (Hi! fellow GhostGISHers! 🙂 ) and we all worked hard – it’s fun doing the items, but it’s better having people to share the weirdness with! ❤
Here are my submissions, in the order I did them –
38 – Writer’s Block.
215 – KIDS MENU There’s a tiny fairy secretly living in your house! Take a picture of the proof.
41 – Antisocial butterfly.
157 – In our April Hunt, our beloved friend, photographer and humanitarian Giles Duley, hosted a ‘storytelling in photography’ panel in which he spoke of the empowering act of turning the camera on yourself (literally or metaphorically) to tell your own story. (If you missed it, you can watch it HERE.) It’s time to take a page out of Giles’ book: create a self-portrait that accurately illustrates some facet of yourself and your story that you would like to reclaim to empower yourself. Caption the portrait in a footnote that explains briefly what your image communicates.
117 – Dinner tonight? Mom’s famous feetloaf. We said what we said.
205 – New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern has led her nation to being one of the few to get COVID completely under control. Create a portrait of her, carved into the side of a kiwifruit, in honor of a job well done.
170 – Bogie and Bacall. Sandy and Danny. Doc and Marty. Turner and Hooch. Some movie duos stand the test of time, and Misha and the Queen are no different. Draw or paint a poster of HRH and Misha as an iconic pairing in a scene from a classic or beloved film. You must digitally (or old-fashioned) paint or draw this. You’re not permitted to simply photoshop their heads on the bodies of actors on a movie poster. For obvious reasons, you may not depict any scene from Titanic or Gone With The Wind.
22 – Depict something you struggle with (mental health issues, a personal issue, etc) as a strange cryptid you encountered in the woods. Portray yourself befriending it as a new camp buddy or defeating it powerfully.
27 – Thigh-high crocs.
88 – In the past, we asked you to Salt and Pepper Iron Man, so it seems only fitting you create a Spice-Art tribute to Iron Man’s creator, the late, great Stan Lee. Whether it is the man himself, or his comic book creations, create a Spicy-Art tribute to Stan. Excelsior!
138 – Mother loves your macaroni art, and we’d hate to disappoint her. Paint a perfect recreation of Whistler’s Mother on a single piece of elbow macaroni.
I also did the big donation item (Change A Life), but I had trouble getting it to work, as the website wouldn’t let me make a page. I did eventually sort it out, and we got some donations, but it was too late to get what we needed for the item…
Here it is anyway!
161 – CHANGE A LIFE. This year, the Black Lives Matter movement helped cast a spotlight on the United States’ approach to criminal justice, highlighting ugly truths about a prison system badly in need of reform. The US criminal justice system disproportionately targets people of color, subjecting them to brutal, harrowing punishments that would be inhumane regardless of the alleged infraction that brought them behind bars — and many prisoners are detained and denied basic human rights behind bars despite being guilty of minor offenses or of no crime at all. Every year, over 600,000 people enter prison gates. Even more troubling, 10.6 million people cycle through local county jails each year. To complicate matters, the COVID-19 pandemic has turned correctional facilities into death camps. As cases spread through overcrowded prisons and jails, social distancing becomes impossible, masks and other personal protective equipment are scarce, access to alcohol-based hand sanitizer is often banned, and medical care has a long history of neglectful treatment. We’re going to try to do something to protect people at risk of oppression and human rights violations in the United States Criminal Justice System.
YOUR MISSION In partnership with Dream Corps (a 501 (c)(3)), we’re setting a goal of raising $100,000 to help close prison doors and open doors of opportunity for people incarcerated in the United States who are being subjected to inhumane and unjust treatment. To be clear, this isn’t an issue of guilt or innocence; it’s a human rights issue. No person should face abuse or risk death due to a lack of adequate resources and proper, humane treatment. WHAT TO DO: Create a fundraiser page here and get at least 10 donations of a minimum of $10 (GoFundMe’s lowest denomination). WE ARE NOT ASKING YOU OR YOUR TEAMMATES TO DONATE. Rather, we ask that you reach out to the global community and your social networks to make a contribution. Then, submit a screenshot of your fundraiser showing 10 donations and the total amount donated to us for your points.
WHAT YOUR DONATIONS DO: Your donations will help fund Dream Corps’ efforts to “#cut50” — a bipartisan effort to cut crime and incarceration across all 50 states – while moving the needle toward criminal justice reform on several levels to create a more equitable and just system. Funds from this campaign will go to programs that: (1) create dignity and safety for incarcerated people. (2) provide critically needed policy change that expands life-saving treatment, testing, sanitation gear to protect those behind bars from the pandemic, (3) fight for badly-needed legislative prison reform that reduces incarceration and provides fair chances for people when they return to communities, and (4) support advocacy programs that help formerly incarcerated leaders share their experiences with those empowered to change the system – changing minds, hearts, and laws. We invite you to please join us in achieving our goal of raising 100,000 to help change the lives of people who experienced atrocities and prejudices similar to Pamela Winn. DONATIONS ARE 100% TAX DEDUCTIBLE AND 100% OF THE DONATIONS GO TO THESE EFFORTS (for countries other than the U.S., deductions are contingent on your laws).
All in all, a great week! 😀
Some of the staging for photos made me tear my hair out a bit, some of the items required ingenuity to complete. The “feetloaf” tasted fine, although the boys refused to eat the toes!
I wasn’t too well the last few days, as I was mostly just eating whatever was easiest. Unfortunately that included confusingly labelled sauerkraut, which I was reading as in date, but I eventually found to be almost a month out of date…
I’ll happily do it all again next year.
Want to join me?
1000 Fields of Roses 