2023 Visions Come Into Sight

Lauren Sellers made short, careful cuts through shiny magazine paper, tracing along the edges of an image of an ice cream cone — all while mapping out a vision for how to be her best self in the year ahead. 

Sellers was one of a handful of community members to turn out to downtown’s main branch of the public library Wednesday to participate in a 2023 vision board-making workshop. 

The event took place in The Tinker Lab, a community maker space within the New Haven Free Public Library on Elm Street, which blossomed into a soundscape of magazine rifling, scissor snipping, and the uncapping-and-recapping of glue sticks as New Haveners like Sellers gathered for a collaging event centered on New Year’s resolutions.

As she snipped, Sellers recalled a movie she used to watch, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, which tells the story of an inventor who develops a machine that turns water into food.

The film was inspiring to Sellers, who dreams of becoming an engineer with a few invention ideas of her own, like a solar-powered bicycle. 

The ice cream cone, and the turkey she cut out afterwards, were to serve as reminders of this ambition, as she pasted them together in a collage with other inspirational phrases.

Wednesday’s free public event at the library was called ​“New Year, New You,” and came with a promise to inspire participants to create their very own vision boards for 2023. The event was run by Ives Squared Manager Jennifer Gargiulo. 

“The concept of vision boarding is taking a goal or goals for yourself, either for a specific time period or for the year, and putting it down on paper to envision what you want that time to look like,” she told the group of attendees. 

Gargiulo said that unlike lists, which ​“tend to get very overwhelming,” a vision board can target broader, more conceptual goals like emotions you hope to manifest, or phrases and mantras to meditate on. 

For Gargiulo, that means focusing on what her first year as a mom will look like. With her baby set to arrive next month, Gargiulo opted to center her vision board on motherhood, pasting together phrases like ​“Family Adventure” and ​“Quality Play.”

As each new participant arrived, Gargiulo reviewed the myriad of supplies available for use: plenty of magazines, scrapbooking paper, construction paper, markers, regular scissors, decorative scissors, glue, glitter glue, washi tape, feathers, other art supplies, and even some deaccessioned books.

She said that events like these are helpful to showing the community what materials are available to them at the Tinker Lab outside of the main attractions, like the 3D printer.

Co-workers Vincent Mele and Nicki Shea were among the first to arrive as the event kicked off. Mele clipped out phrases like ​“Believe anything is possible,” and ​“Creating a lifetime of memories,” which he said were reminders to focus on positivity and keeping busy.

He said the opportunity to create the vision board was a great way to ​“get away from everyday stress” and ​“prioritize thinking about things” that he wants to ​“improve on this year.” The cutting and pasting gave him a nostalgia for elementary school art class, he added.

Shea chimed in to agree, adding that the physical action of collaging allowed for a more tangible and engaging experience than contemporary ways of ​“vision boarding” via social media platforms like Pinterest. Shea centered her vision board around aspects of physical and mental health, focusing on avoiding stress and drinking more water.

“As I get older, I think that it’s cool to take care of your body. People might think it’s to be skinny or to be a certain way, but it’s just about being healthy,” Shea said. ​“And mental health, like getting off my phone, doing stuff like this, participating more in community events. I want to try to do that.”

Mental health and inner peace were a common theme among Wednesday’s projects. Sellers’s grandmother, Loria Jones, said that her vision for 2023 is to work on being at peace by learning to do more for herself and ​“not being afraid to say ​‘No, I can’t help you at the moment.’ ”

She opted for an orange sheet of scrapbooking paper decorated with peace signs as the background, and pasted a flower in the center.

Jones related to the woman crafting next to her, Anita, as they both clipped out reminders to push themselves to do activities and adventures outside of their comfort zones in the new year.

At another table, Platt Tech junior Jeremiah Jones cut out a stack of books with a clock. He said this year, he wants to ​“focus on reading and managing my time better.” His mother Jaclyn agreed — she wants to read a physical book, not on her phone or on the computer. 

Some goals were more concrete, like that of Jimena, who aspires to go to college for psychology in 2023. 

“I have the power to change my story,” Jimena wrote out on a speech bubble. She said she used to think she would never go to college, but now she has at least applied. And affirmations like the one she wrote help remind her of her capacity to create change in her life, she said.

For Sellers, the final version of her vision board focused on ways to ​“to continue working on becoming a better Lauren and an engineer,” fit with images of fellow coming-of-age kids and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs-esque food.