The Doodler’s Guide to Essex, NY

How do you doodle?

Are you a talking-on-the-telephone doodler? A pen-or-pencil-only doodler? A digital doodler as happy on your mobile phone or tablet as you are with pen and paper?

Do you doodle your way through long meetings to keep from drooling on your notes?

Or are you a closet doodler, unwilling to admit your affection for whimsical, often aimless illustrations?

Perhaps you’re too serious to doodle. Maybe you even consider doodling the domain of youngsters, idlers and hacks…

We hope to change your mind!

Why do we doodle?

We believe that doodles are a fun and possibly even useful way to interact with your environment. Doodling is an act of engagement. Doodlers are curious, inquisitive and experimental. They transform images into ideas and ideas into ideas. Doodlers process the world visually and kinetically, exploring the contours and textures and feelings of the people and places thy encounter.

As a rule, doodlers don’t take themselves too seriously. We’re playful. We’re curious. We’re experimental. Doodlers are adventurers! We use our pens and our pencils and our digital tablets to ask visual questions and to take risks that we might otherwise avoid. Doodles are passports to the unknown. And we secretly suspect that even non-doodlers are really just repressed doodlers. Or closet doodlers. Or future doodlers!

Let’s doodle Essex, NY!

The Doodler’s Guide to Essex, NY is first and foremost an adventure. A collaborative adventure for people who love Essex, NY. People who’ve been exploring Essex for years and people who are only now discovering our unique Adirondack village on the shores of Lake Champlain.

The Doodler’s Guide to Essex, NY is a project to anthologize and celebrate the lives, landmarks and legends of Essex. History, heritage, architecture, enterprise, culture. And doodles! Handmade visual artifacts inspired by a town and its people.

The Doodler’s Guide to Essex, NY is an experiment in transmedia storytelling (concurrent and but unique narrative channels across multiple media) which so far includes blogging; ebooks (the manuscript for The Doodler’s Guide to Essex, NY Architecture is currently being edited); live performance (debuted at The Depot Theatre on July 23, 2013); print books; and hopefully a gallery exhibition and a mobile app. Stay tuned for updates.

And get involved. Let us know if you’d like to submit a doodle or contribute an idea. We can’t wait to hear from you!