The Focus Project Workshop is a 4-week Virtual Workshop viewing clutter through the eye of a camera. Participants will learn simultaneously about their relationship to clutter and the how to view it differently by making and organizing thoughtful photographs. This four-week process can bring change inwardly in the participant and visibly in the house.

FRAME

·       Identify the role of clutter in your life

·       Learn basics for thoughtful photographs

·       Take pictures around your home and talk about them

VALUE

·       Increase decision-making capacity regarding items importance

·       Use light, perspective, and neutral space to reveal value in photographs

·       Take a scavenger hunt for lights and shadows amid your clutter

EDIT

·       Edit your things to match your goals

·       Organize edited photographs

·       Share one of your edited photographs

PRESENT

·       Reflect on the direction of your growth

·       Enjoy taking more thoughtful photographs

·       Present your Gallery Show 

Leaders:

Susan Gardner, CPO-CD® and Bud Alexander, Amateur Photographer

In 2010 Susan, a Certified Professional Organizer in Chronic Disorganization, began exploring a new direction after nearly thirty years in United Methodist ministry. Learning first about professional organizing, she instantly connected much of her training and work with people who are chronically disorganized. Photographing items of importance and value was commonly recommended in the process of letting things go. At one level this made sense, but she wondered how the photographs could become meaningful. From this curiosity The Focus Project  emerged.

Working alongside her husband, Bud, she offers The Focus Project as a virtual workshop. Bud is the photographer in the family, having captured their children, events and trips masterfully. They have worked as a team in organizing and decorating their own home (often with his photographs) amidst Susan’s tendency toward chronic disorganization. Most recently they have begun significantly editing the items in their house, both the nonfunctioning ones and the sentimental ones.

Bud, a retired campus minister, took a trip to England and France shortly after finishing college. Using his parents’ compact, portable camera, he recognized the photographic limitations for a trip of this importance. Wanting to be able to take pictures that meet the value of future experiences, he bought his first 35 mm camera. After much reading and self-teaching, he sees three things as most helpful: fill the frame with the subject, avoid unwanted people in the photograph, and be aware of edges and background. He does his best photographing people, moments, or things with which he feels a connection.