{Go Now and Live}
Go Now and Live {Fine Art Print}
words by Jeanette LeBlanc
designed by Amanda Farough
{copyright 2012}
12×12 Signed Print on fine art paper: $50.
{Shipping varies with location}
{The Story of Go Now and Live}
These words were first written in the fall of 2008; scrawled in my journal one late night after hours of crying. I had just come out of the closet. My marriage was ending. I felt like life as I knew it was over and I had no idea what it was about to become.
I thought about what I would tell my 21 year old self if I had a chance to go back in time and whisper in her ear as she slept. What knowledge would I want to impart to that idealistic young woman with the whole world at her feet? As I thought, these words flowed from me and something inside me was healed.
Some time later I was getting ready for a friends birthday, and I decided that these words would make a good gift. I played around in Photoshop with a typewriter font and textures I created myself from old photographs. I printed the file onto the back of a Trader Joes grocery bag and was pretty pleased with the whole thing. Just before I was about to slip it into the plain black frame my girlfriend urged me to sign the back.
“Why would I do that?”, I scoffed.
“Because this is the original”, she replied
I rolled my eyes at her, always my biggest cheerleader, but did as she suggested; never imagining there would be any more prints of my last minute brown paper bag printed birthday gift.
I decided to post the file on flickr to share with my friends, family and photography community and it got some lovely comments, and then I promptly forgot about it. I included my name and a copyright mark, again only at the urging of my girlfriend.
A year or so later an email appeared in my inbox from a woman who wanted permission to tattoo the words from “Go Now and Live” on her body. I was so shocked that I think I laughed out loud. I responded and said of course, but could she please tell me where on earth she had found it. “You don’t know? Just go Google it”.
And so I did. Unbeknownst to me my humble words had been traveling cyberspace, shared on Tumblr and blogs and websites from all over the world. Since then I have received emails from people from all walks of life who have connected with the words. People battling cancer, parents who want to gift the words to their children, a company in the UK who wanted to make a poster for college kids to post on their doors of their dormitories. It’s been featured in presentations by Falling Whistles, turned into three tattoos (that I know of) and included in a book by the amazing Patti Digh. What I love the most is that this occurred organically – without any intention on my part to make it so.
I think it would make my 21 year old self pretty happy too.
