Further Unruliness

It looks as though I will have to subdivide "The Tome" as the Gryphon likes to call it. At this point it could easily be two large volumes. I think I'd better go with three, I am not done adding things. It also appears I will need to reinforce the holes as well. I have "completed" about 6 pages in the rear of the volume. By completed I mean that I have finished glueing and painting, have added areas to write in and gone over it all with a coat of heavy gel. When I finally use this journal I may add other items as well as writing and drawing (mostly doodles). I love these pages and sit there petting them. The Gryphon says he fears rolling over in bed and finding me, the tome and the glue.

Reversing the order of applications as mentioned in the previous post has worked out well so far. I keep grabbing things out of various bags and boxes and going through adding bits here and there. How do I select what goes where? I put things down on several pages and then when it "fits" I glue it down. I like to add elements to as many pages as possible, so far I've done that with a sun rubberstamp and the Martha Stewart (not a huge Martha craft supply fan, but her punches are quite marvelous, I'm coveting the dual starfish/sand dollar punch presently) bird punch, I'm not punching the pages, but punching magazine pages and glueing them down on every page. I probably pay far more attention to color or lack thereof than to putting things together thematically. The fact that one page has a rain photo and the opposite has a rain check ticket is either pure coincidence or unconscious brilliance (cough, cough) on my part.

Unruly

A friend once described me as a brambly, overgrown sort of woman. I really like that description. I try not to impose rules on my journalling which makes unruliness the order of the day/year/century. This year, especially since last summer, I seem to be feeling more and more chaotic. I have a lot of different journals for different things, from reading journals to my chronological "americas-test-kitchen" free-for-all experimental do whatever I please journals. I like to work within constraints, but I've just (thank you, Ianto) had to slap myself for trying to impose rules on myself again. A few months back I thought of the idea of using bill and junk mail envelopes (especially patterned safety papered windowed ones) for journal pages. I made covers out of used manilla envelopes and used a zutter machine to bind them together. It was a pretty amateurish attempt, the holes are less than perfect and I didn't trim them at all. I've used layers of crackle paint on the cover to make it look like an old cabinet door that had been repainted several times and abused and left out in the rain. Then I started gluing pieces of handbills pulled off of Hawthorne SE and 21st NW wooden power poles, the more weathered, the better. I used Uhu for awhile, but it didn't get magical until I switched to Yes! which added just the right amount of stiffness for pages. I tried to utilize the windows as well. It was looking just raunchy (not a bad start) and then I started adding borders which pulled the open pages together. Some of the borders are wide strips done with Copic markers, some are the computer feed hole strips pulled off of invoices, and whatever else I might come up with. I liked the idea of repurposing the materials. But then the inevitable conflict arose of when to say enough is enough. I got there today. It can't be entirely repurposed material unless I want to alchemically turn something into glue and something else into paint. So, I'm going with the tide on this one and just feeling the direction as it occurs.

I'd considered finishing volume seven (which requires binding) first, but it's just become an arbitrary constraint. So, I've been painting and wiping (Juliana style), and utilizing my collection of nouns in it, getting ready for another layer. I'm not exactly sure what the next layer will be. I ran out of paint halfway through, I could either use another color or get more, but when I started writing in purple Caran d'Ache neopastel, I kept writing even when the painting ran out, and even on pages that didn't have anything glued on them, so it will be interesting to see what happens on pages that get the order reversed.

Mindful Textillian

I had a quiet hour this morning and spent part of it layering sewing pattern piece tissue in my journal. The paper is very fragile and Yes! glue is the consistency of honey so it was a slow, deliberate process. I found myself silently chanting a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow quote that I find timeless:

All things must change, to something new, to something strange.

It was a pleasant and mindful process which is something I love about journaling. I've begun doodling flourishes, lines, and other things with extra fine markers just for the slow, mindful process. I love the feeling. I love the way things feel both tactile and physically. I am a Textilian. One of things I like to glue into my journals is rose petals (an idea I borrowed from my beautiful daughter, Bhride--first you convince them to art journal and then you borrow their ideas). If you flatten them (unabridged dictionary works for me), then gluestick (oh, holy gluestick) them down, and do not put any thing over them (I tried botanical glue, it did not work) you can touch them and they are like velvet on your page.

Lately I have been laying paper on paper, and I love how it stiffens like paper mache. I love the feeling of the starchiness. I could glue pages together, but it doesn't really appeal to me (one day it will--I just haven't found the right situation thus far). I've been mulling over how to add fabric to my pages, so far I've used ribbon. But I tend to go for a grunge look that I haven't figured out yet for fabric, maybe tea dying and iron burnmarks, spilled coffee and bits of lace, apron pockets and hankies. Or just a book for swatches and a magnificent cover. A fabric fondle book of sorts.

It amazes me how much just spilled out of my head just then--putting ideas down tends to make them morph and grow.

I've been reading about Autism lately. We recently learned that my granddaughter, Ila, has some form of it. I read "Emergence" by Temple Grandin first. I wanted to learn about it from the inside out. It was quite a relief.

It was suggested that we work with her doing art, so yesterday I went over to babysit armed with dropcloth, paint, brushes and paper. We painted for quite awhile until we ran out of paper. I just squirted out globs of washable tempera on the drop cloth and we made quite a mess. Bree caught a photo of Annika with a blue goatee. But we had fun and hopefully the pages will dry before the year is out.

I tried researching art therapy online. Quite disappointing. I suppose the term is pretty broad, but I couldn't seem to find general information, I found plenty of therapists, books, programs and schools, but I don't know what I was looking for, all I found were more questions. Why do therapists want to help you discover and live your dreams? Why is therapy viewed chronologically? Why is all of this up for sale? Why do we keep cutting art programs in public schools? If we know that art is theraputic, why don't we all make an effort to participate? Why is this culture so dead set against anyone getting an education that will make us more whole? And especially, why can't we all get this for free? Seriously, why do we not teach children how to draw? Surely for wholistic brain health this is necessary. Of course we have a real problem with the concept of health for free. Do we really prefer to pay three or four times more to clean up the mess that denial of healthcare creates?

Mind Full ness

There has been a lot going on in my head lately and I think I will have to break it into categories and do them separately or the sheer length of this post will make it unreadable. Chaos in my head usually whirls together at some point and starts sending darts flying at different targets. Sometimes it all comes back together.

I keep telling myself to collect all of my found objects together in one cigar box and when it is full, create something. So far, I've only been able to remember it. I pass up quite a few things when I am out walking, maybe I should keep a bag in my pocket. It would be fun to scan all of the items and play with them like Colorforms. Now I've set myself another task...

If you can get a copy of issue #28 of The Bear Deluxe it is the contemporary art issue. This is yet another fine Portland periodical (free). I've flipped through it quickly, mostly only looked at the first page because Alan brought it to my attention, but that was inspiring. It looks like random patterns, but there are words in it. So I filled up extra space on one of my journal pages with the smallest lines I could manage. It looks like sky to me, with small birds here and there. And sort of brings to mind the comics I have been reading. I love the drawing in comics and of course I think I can't do it, but I probably can if I would only try. I have been attempting to draw more lately, it feels meditative, and it feels beyond what I can find a word for, but I've been reading a book called "Creativity From Potential to Realization" edited by Robert J. Sternberg and others. Only Chapter 8 has given me what I have been looking for, which is a listing of 13 intuitve, imaginative processes (from Sparks of Genius, 1999 Root-Bernstein):

1. Observing
2. Imaging
3. Abstracting
4. Pattern Recognizing
5. Pattern Forming
6. Analogizing
7. Empathizing
8. Body Thinking
9. Dimensional Thinking
10. Modeling
11. Playing
12. Transforming
13. Synthesizing

I am glad I found this book at the library since so little of it is what I was looking for, but I am so happy with this list and the subsequent explanation that I will probably be looking for Sparks of Genius next.

Firing My Muse

Somewhere in time, when I wasn't looking, my muse turned out to be a (psychic) vampire. It sounds harsh, I know, but it's just another SFT (Stupid Female Trick) to work so hard to try to please someone who cannot be pleased. So, he is now fired. I have now bought myself a lot of freedom. So will I find someone else to fill the position? I think instead I will invent an invisible muse. I still want my muse to be male and I love the name Ianto (yes from Torchwood), only this Ianto will have the body of St. Sebastian, complete with arrows, a set of working wings and some sort of animal head--with antlers. Ianto will live in a cave, read by torchlight, never watch television, and will convey messages from Guillermo del Toro. I do not wish to dominate or isolate Ianto, so he will have lots of artistic friends and a social life of his own. He can also choose his own preferred diet. If he wants to live on roast owl with gumdrops, it is fine with me.

Art & Soul 2008 Portland

I've been visual journalling for more than 15 years now and in all that time I have only taken one class which actually was even earlier than that, stamp carving. There were four people there, me, the two friends I came with and the instructor. It was a valuable class and I still carve stamps now and then. I've wanted to attend Art & Soul and ArtFest for years now and the closest I got was going to Vendor night two years ago with Bree. It's always been a problem with the timing, the money, or the distance. Another barrier for me is that I can find the information somewhere else, or figure it out myself.



In the meantime, I have joined PDX Visual Journaling Group led by Donna Bauermiller. Donna is very very gifted. Not only can she show you her growth as an artist, she is willing to. And she is one of the most natural encouragers I have ever encountered. In any meeting she will draw you out and find out things I would never think to ask. She also has a great sense of humor. I love this woman. And I have really come to love the class experience.



So, I decided I wanted to go this year to at least one class, but when the classes opened I didn't have the money and then it was too late. But someone dropped the class I wanted to take and I made it. So yesterday I took the workshop Book of the Night by Juliana Coles. Was it worth it? Yes. It takes me at least a day to determine how I feel about something, a book, a movie, and in this case, the class. I chose it because I like dark themes. I expected it to be emotionally draining. It wasn't. It was draining, I felt absolutely exhausted by the end of the class. I was quite happy to be done.



On reflection, the class isn't complete yet. There are exercises to be done yet which are in the workshop book we were given. And I've thought of a couple of my own. The other thing this class has shown me is that I need to take more classes. Not so much on theme levels as on technique levels. I found painting with acrylic to be very seductive. I don't particularly want to produce art on canvas, but I do want to know more about composition, balance, and when to quit! Or when not to. And improve my drawing skills, which I have been working on on my own. And maybe get in a bit of writing with Susan Wooldridge.



Another benefit was the swaps. I prepared 35 (gave one away at work) little packets. I knew I wouldn't finish 35 of anything, so I sorted through most of my stockpiles and whenever I found 35 of something, I put one in each bag. Eventually they filled an entire totebag. My co-inhabitant was adamant that I should return with an empty bag. I made about a dozen swaps and gave the rest away. It was well worth it. On every level. :)



And there were the benefits of interaction with the other women at our table. It was delightful. And going to the vendor sale and running into so many familiar faces? Priceless. I can't wait for next year, so I'd better start stowing some $$. I have a lone sock somewhere....