Activity

"What you have to do
You do with play."
Carl Jung.

When Jung decided to try to discover the myth by which he was living, he asked himself, "What was the game I enjoyed when I was a child?" His answer was making little towns and streets out of stones. So he bought some property and, as a way of playing, began to build a house. It proved to be an enjoyable way to create sacred space because it was sheer play.

The Soul Food Cafe was built as a playground, a way to create the palace that is the inner life of its creator, Heather Blakey. Creating it has been a passion. It has been sheer play.

To help you remember how you liked to play, to promote play enter some truly exciting play houses. The Soul Food Cafe has never been into reinventing the wheel or expending energy presenting material which has been so effectively presented by others.The Soul Food Cafe cannot speak highly enough of the following play houses which foster creativity and promote outrageous, spontaneous thinking.

Make sure that head off, experiment and have a good time rediscovering how you like to play. Do make sure to keep some notes in your Chocolate Box journal and your findings and do remember to come back to Soul Food eventually.

A companion site to the Creativity Portal Creo City is a wonderland for anyone interested in experimenting and enhancing their creativity. Its purpose is to engage visitors in activities that spark the imagination and foster creativity. It's a place for all "kids at heart" to experience fun projects; view unusual artistic expression and creative exhibits; and challenge the imagination within a fun, explorative setting. Creo City includes some how-to sites and projects, but focuses on applied creativity and inspirational visual ideas. Visit Creo City today!

Through the Creativity Portal I found the Art Room and sat, mouth open, drooling at all the treasure, all the things I can do with my classes in 2004.

The artrageous thinking section is a delight. I fell in love with it at first sight. Whenever you are in the Art Room you can be fairly sure that I will have been there, in one of the rooms, playing.

The Soul Food Cafe was born after a Vice Principal, back in 1999, commented that whenever he passed my classroom 'we were all writing. He observed that even I was sitting writing, when teachers normally move around the room or stand directing the class. "You do too much writing" he told me. After shrieking around the place in shock and disbelief that anyone could challenge me leading by example, I borrowed a stack of videos and told my classes that, since we did too much writing, we would have a week watching videos. The Blues Brothers was one of the videos I showed the Year 10 English class that week. I glanced up from my writing to see The Soul Food Cafe and the rest is history.

The Soul Food Cafe Tram was born after a conversation with my Year 12 class in 2003 when I sought to reassure them that although they were not being taught in the same way as the other class, they would be equally well prepared for the final exam. I told them we were simply on different trams but were all headed in the same direction.

One of the members of that class clearly took all of this to heart. He wrote this piece for the school magazine to go with photographs of the Mystery Writing Tour and the Mannequin Project. I take his words, especially the bit about my tram travelling defiantly in a different direction, to be an affirmation of my artrageousness.

This year, year twelve English was taught by Mrs S and Mrs. Blakey. The course explored indifference, lessons for living, injustice, power and Australian indigenous issues. Both classes studied the same topics and participated in some wacky exercises. There was the mystery writing adventures and then we packed suitcases and did a self-portrait by using a mannequin. But perhaps the most mysterious thing of all was that the two year twelve classes seemed to travel on two very different trams.

The Ms S tram - if there were tracks, would probably travel along Upper Heidelberg Road Ivanhoe. The tram is sleek, new, tidy and orderly. The daily timetable is up on the wall, planned down to the minute. The stop would be at a designer boutique shop for a new pair of shoes. Breakfast would consist of healthy food and be followed by a jog. 'Healthy body, healthy study'. Breakfast over and off to buy a new designer outfit. And what would a new outfit be without the latest hair cut. Then it would be off to a gourmet café to study in.

The Mrs. Blakey tram would defiantly travel through Fitzroy, most probably Brunswick Street. The tram would be an old W-Class tram decorated like something out of Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Mrs Blakey would be on the roof dressed in a black swan suit dancing like a gypsy. The first stop would be at a coffee shop for a fix of brewed coffee. Nothing better than a good strong coffee to keep you going. Then it would be off to an opportunity shop for some alternative styles. A stop off would be made rinse through a new hair colour. Then it would be off to a deserted building covered in crows to study in.

Our journeys would eventually meet up again, most probably in Fairfield where the two trams would emerge into one and, amazingly we would all have the expertise to pass the first exam.