The Green Book

A collaborative art project by you and me

In 2012, I won a young writers contest in my middle school. The “grand prize” was a vintage poetry book that I absolutely hated, the words were so old-timey and it was mildly racist. It sat on my bookshelf collecting dust until a day I lost my paint palette. And that’s what it was for a while, a bound set of pages I would use to clean the extra paint off my brushes. Fast forward to 2017, when I was in high school and accidentally brought that old poetry book to school instead of my sketchbook. I drew in it anyway. My close friend Francesca wanted to draw in it too, and we fooled around the entire class. I got the idea to share the book with a girl I desperately wanted to be friends with at the time. Her name was Bella and I thought offering her a page in my book would be a nice ice breaker.

The first few pages of the book (Image 1-2: extra paint and sketches. Image 3: A collaborative page between me and my friend Francesca. Image 4: One of Bella's pages)

That was the beginning of The Green Book. I would hand over the book to a stranger, and a few days later, the book would have new colorful pages and I would have a new friend. People were encouraged to paint the pages, draw over the words and write new ones, glue, tape, staple anything they wanted to. I only had a few rules:

1. Don’t paint over what has already been painted

2. Don’t take any pages out

3. Make sure to return the book back within a reasonable time

4. Be nice, respectful, and have fun

Some people would sign their names. Some would sign with a symbol. I would give it to one person and in the time they had The Green Book, they would share it with their friends. I have never met some of the people who drew in my book. Within the pages are love letters, secrets and confessions, poems, and lyrics. I could go on and on.

One of my favorite pages is page 62, artist JHB painted vibrant yellow honey combs with large blush hearts and wrote “THIS PAGE IS DEDICATED TO MY LOVE ALICE ''. Then, on page 48, the same artist drew empty black honeycombs with a long poem about how Alice dumped them. I hope JHB is doing better, and I’m very grateful they told their story in my book.

One of my favorite anonymous artist signs their pages with a black rectangle. Page 131 is a drawing of an anatomically correct human heart with the words “sweet creature, take my heart” emphasized with red paint. To me, this page talks about a dependent romantic relationship. This person is so incredibly in love to the point where it feels dangerous.

Something many people did was cross out certain words of the already printed poem and create a poem of their own. It was called “black out poems”. One of the most popular black out poems is on page 65. The original, printed poem was called “The Postman” and every word was painted over except “Hey! Little dog.”

The longest I’ve been without The Green Book was 3 months, when I lost it in Hartford, CT on a college campus. But it somehow found its way back to me. The farthest it travelled from me in Connecticut was almost 3,000 miles away to Calrifornia. A girl named Abby took it on vacation with her.

I forget how special it is that I have people’s, most complete strangers, deepest emotions and journal entries sitting on my bookshelf. There are only a few blank pages left. I hope to finish it one day. Most of all, I dream about meeting some of the artists of my book and asking about their page. Or even better, asking for a follow up page. What started as an ice breaker became a huge collaborative art project.

The very last page of he book. The words "Be you!"