Over lunch the other day we talked about project traces, what manifests. I got the image of animal "sign", like knowing when a deer or a bear has crossed your path. You may not know exactly what it is, how it got there, or where it is going, but you spy the evidence.
Our projects leave such tracings. But we have our project designs to help us figure out what we're making, how we got here, and where we are going.
What are the traces from my project? My artifact from the future is something I imagined at the beginning of the lab. But the tracings we're talking about here are the things that have come into our lives now that the lab is at its halfway point. This blog of course is one sign of my project results coming into being. Also, the pool I swim in when it is cold in Austin, and the tea at Yoga Yoga that warms me after a spacious hour of practice. Amalia and the gym
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I asked the labsters this question: "What is emerging on your project?"
From Liz we have the following notes: "Here are two pictures of what is in my life today now that my project is in progress. I have been acquiring some boxes and wrappings that will make my drawings and paintings protected yet accessible, so I can enjoy having my pieces well cared for and also at my fingertips when people come to the studio to see my work. 
So that's the picture of the boxes.
The other picture, the blessedly empty space, is a view of the project that is taking most of my time these days. I think I'm about to turn a whole house into an art studio. It's scary because it's a hefty allocation of resources and time, and perhaps not even wise considering my financial affairs, but something keeps goading me on in that direction. I think it's about giving a strong value to my work, and having an environment that reflects that intention."
Notes from Anna: My project has many levels and layers, and I think of it as a multidimensional bullseye target, or “Bullseye Home”. It has to do with developing a sense of belonging and actually living in a place rather than perching temporarily on a patch of real estate, or camping like a nomad in a living room. 
My project sculpture is overlain on a genuine target, complete with darts. The layers include a prayer to Gaia, a map of the Texas hill country, and a map of my subdivision. The corazon ornament (note glitter) represents my longing for a sense of belonging, which I’m starting to realize involves a change of heart.
My own space: I’ve taken advice from a labster, and planted an oak in my yard as a commitment to my living space and feeling like I belong. I’ve also planted a peach tree, a pomegranate, and two grape vines in the yard. I’m growing an herb garden on my back porch for now, and lettuce and chard in my hanging baskets. I took a feng shui class and rearranged parts of the house so that they felt more welcoming, like arms extended to embrace me and my guests. I cleared my guest room to welcome guests. I discovered that a young friend starting out in his own business has installed dozens of bamboo floors, so he can help with mine in a manner that has us both winning some time early in the new year.
My own community: I joined a CSA and have organic produce and eggs delivered once a week by a local organic farmer, who is marvelously nutty in a good way. I joined the landscaping committee in my neighborhood and am in charge of the Christmas tree recycling effort where we will create fish and bird habitat in our little 30 acre fishing lake. I’m working with the group to start a farmer’s market in the ‘hood, a community orchard, and community gardens at the school. I’ve written a genuine crank letter about speeders in the neighborhood, and will likely go to the city council meeting to lobby for speed bumps. Be the change and all that.
My future community: Turns out a lot of my friends are looking to create physical community, and I’ll be exploring opportunities with them. I’ve taken an intentional community workshop with one friend. I’ve already decided that my community is Wimberley, if it isn’t with my friends, although Mason still crooks its finger at me now and then.
Project surprise: Something that spun out sideways from my current project is a developing belief that it is okay to ask for what I want, no matter how outlandish it seems to my old self-denying self. In the Bolivian town of Copacabana on Lake Titicaca people from three countries came to the enormous colonial cathedral built to honor the Virgin of Copacabana to have their vehicles blessed by a local shaman. The shaman sprinkles blessed water on the vehicle and chants something in the ancient Quecha tongue, while the owners talk on their cell phones to business associates in metropolitan La Paz or Lima, gold necklaces glinting in the sunlight. The shaman’s blessing constitutes vehicle insurance in a country where political regimes change every 11 months, and per capita income hovers around $300. This is a place where people think in a different way than we do, and their values are a mix of modern and ancient. A friend purchased this 
icon for me from a stall in the shadow of the Virgin’s cathedral, and I keep it next to my project sculpture. I love that the icon’s purpose is to ask the virgin for EVERYTHING--lots of money, a new car, a big new house, beauty, a country/province to belong to, continued faith.
