the SKETCHBOOK EXCHANGE

I'm participating in a SKETCHBOOK EXCHANGE--- started by artist Jim Doran ---where all the artists who signed up (13 of us) buy a new sketchbook (like a Moleskin) and draw on the first 7 or so pages then mail it off to the next person on the list---and when you receive someone's sketchbook you draw on the next 7 pages, then mail it on--until you receive your own sketchbook back.....so I will be drawing at least 7 pages in 13 different sketchbooks before we are through.

I realized today as I was drawing in the new sketchbook---how very little drawing I have been doing lately. So, this will be very good, for me since it will force me to draw...

Here is my first page---the entrance to my traveling sketchbook....(---I will be posting pages from these sketchbooks here from time to time..)

2008 New Year Intentions

"When it’s over, I want to say: All my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms."
---------Mary Oliver

I don't do new years resolutions---somehow, things never really change when I "resolve" to do something or to change something. Instead, I set an intention. Last year, I set the intention of buying nothing new for 6 months. That intention proved to be a very good consciousness raising tool for me, plus I saved money ;-)

This year my intention is less materially oriented, and more psychological. I intend to live my life more fully, to not hold back, to leap into the unknown....with awareness. I want to live my life with more attention to being here, with more conscious awareness of everyday actions, with the notion that life always gives me the teacher (or teaching) I need at that very moment. The trick is to be aware I was just handed a life lesson....and to not be afraid to grasp the lesson and run with it.

Since I always feel compelled to create art about my life, I'm working on an altered book (---one page you see here above---) in which I intend to document some of the "lessons" life hands me in 2008.