Storytelling

Too Much stuff!

1001 Journals: Traveling Journal No. 3326

My long time mostly online friend Carla (we met online eons ago when the internet was still a new phenomenon) invited me to participate in this "traveling journal"---over the years Carla and I have done some great mail art projects together--so I guess I seemed a perfect candidate for this. Here are my two doodles for the sketchbook....

a very doodly heart--doodled while watching a romantic funny movie...on graph paper--I love to doodle around on graph paper....


and here comes the sun....and spring....

another doodly journal page

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.

Fabric Journal

I have started a visual fabric journal-- well the journal is sewn--but I am mixing paper and fabrics on each page. The paper is all my own designs---mostly small "roughs" from my fabric design classes (visit the design school here)--in color palettes I ended up not using, or designs I haven't completed. I wanted to create a textile "sample book" or "swatch book" with some of my designs--and so far this is the result. I used grommets and ribbon for the binding. Here the large flowers in purples and green on the pink background are my design--painted in gouache. I eventually chose a very different palette to use with this design.

The left page here is part of a of a flower design I created in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, and the right page has part of a design painted in watercolors with inked linework (midpage).

On this page the orange arrows on lavender are my design--painted in gouache.

Here the left side is part of a "doodled" design--but I used a very different color palette for the finished design. I drew this in black and white, then scanned it into the computer and colored it in Photoshop. On the right, the dark gold, brown, and red design is another "doodle"--never used. The nice thing about the ribbon/grommet binding is that I can easily add pages as I make them since this is an on-going journal.

June Bead Journal Update

Awhile ago I joined the Bead Journal Project (you can read more about this project here) -- started by noted beading teacher Robin Atkins---and so here is a peek at how far I am on my June bead journal page. Getting very close to finished--just 1/2 the border around the edge to go...

Yeah--I know, I know--it is July now--but I have resigned myself to the fact that I may not finish each beaded page during the month it is started. We are supposed to make one beaded journal page a month--and I will do this--but the creation of the various pages will undoubtedly overlap some months--and I am ok with that. Some journal pages will probably have more beading on them than others--so will take longer to complete --like this one! which now is about nine-tenth completed. I have decided to not start July's page before the June page is completed, however--because I know myself well enough to know that this one will languish, while I become enamored with the new one I'm working on. I think the Yarn Harlot calls this syndrome "startitus"---and I have the disease bad...always starting new projects, and so have several projects on my "WTBF" (waiting to be finished) shelf. I suffer from "too many ideas--never enough time;-)" and summer traveling, music camps, music festivals and so on seem to get in the way. I just haven't found an easy way to take all the beads and supplies I need for bead embroidery on a trip...it is so much easier to pack some bead crochet, or socks to knit...

and here is a close up (I find beadwork hard to photograph with my point & shoot camera... the colors just are not correct here, and the bead reflect so much light...and this whole piece is really very much greener than this photo--like the lush forest greens of Southeast Alaska)

National Poetry Month

Spring
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.


April is NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

Since I love poetry and I always celebrate National Poetry Month by reading a new poem every day--I have decided to spotlight a few poetry resources I have discovered while surfing around the web.

One of my favorite sites is Poets.org--the website for the National Poetry Foundation--a great place to look up your favorite poet's poems, search for poems to read at that special occasion, or read interview's of poets or sign up to have a poem a day delivered to your inbox for the month of April. The National Poetry Foundation established April as the National Poetry Month in 1996.

Another great poetry resource is The Poetry Foundation---they have a blog, articles, news, and you can search thousands of poems in their archives---by subject, occasion or author.



"Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does."
—Allen Ginsberg, Ginsberg: A Biography, Barry Miles (1989).

For great animated visuals while poet Billy Collins read his poetry try Billy Collins Action Poetry or listen to Garrison Keillor's weekly podcast of The Writer's Almanac. Create your own poem at the Magnetic Poetry Board....looking for that perfect word to rhyme with blog? check out the Online Rhyming Dictionary.

I also highly recommend the Poets' Corner, "one of the largest and oldest text resources on the web. The goal of this project is to create a user-friendly library of works that promotes browsing and exploring through a site that spans thousands of works by hundreds of authors covering thousands of years." At Poetry Daily--you can read a new poem every day! (not just during April). Poets Against War "continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression."

Or join NaPoWriMo---National Poetry Writing Month! Write a poem every day (or at least try to) and post it to your blog if you dare...this dare is from the blog 32 Poems Poetry Magazine.


LIFE, believe, is not a dream,
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day:
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
Oh, why lament its fall?
Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily,
Enjoy them as they fly.

----From LIFE by Charlotte Bronte

Journal Pages

For years I have kept a drawing journal---well, for me it is really a doodling journal--I doodle obsessively, and sometimes those doodles become designs or paintings or find their way into altered books or other projects...today I decided to share some images from my journals.












Quote of the day: "If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced." ---Vincent Van Gogh

Handmade Journal Book

Last weekend I took a fun one day workshop at The San Francisco Center For The Book. I created this daily journal book under the tutelage of Carolee Gilligan Wheeler. Carolee and her friend, Jenny Hinchcliff, have the website PodPost MailArt Gallery of Glory.



The workshop was called Fresh Start: A Personalized Daybook for the New Year and this book has one page for each day of the year. Of course I have vowed to myself that I will, indeed, fill one page each day...so far, so good! and what fun! I had been hoarding this lovely pink, yellow, and brown paste paper a friend made me some years ago, and the covers of this journal seemed the perfect place to use it. The sewn spine just called out for some beads dangling from it, so I added those. The book's signatures are sewn with a simple buttonhole stitch; and the journal is sized to fit into my shoulder bag.