Spirit of My Heart Journal Page

These journal pages reflect what was going on in my head the day I sat down to play.  This journal is getting pretty full!  I've had to take out a lot of pages because it is already bursting at the seams.  One thing I'm really enjoying is the spontaneous color combinations that are happening on my pages. Lime green and blue together are so yummy! The page on the left has a little window that opens onto another page, but there isn't anything to see through it yet.  These two pages were started by laying down color with Derwent Inktense Blocks in several colors of blue and some lime green.  I'm struggling to get results I like with the blocks, especially on un-gessoed paper.  You can see how the scribble marks from the blocks did not blend out when I added water.  It is nearly impossible to work on a totally flat page in an art journal so laying down the color smoothly is difficult.  If the page has been gessoed first the color smooths out much better.  (is "smooths" really a word?  Say it out loud, sounds funny.  Smooooooths....).  I sprayed some Glimmer Mist through plastic canvas over the top.  Nothing fancy happening here but but I rather like the results.

Journal Pages, Serendipity, and Revelation

The quote I pasted into my journal is by Thomas Moore from The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life, and it reads:

"I don't share many of my colleagues enthusiasm for wholeness.  I like fragments and pieces, innuendos and suggestion.  I expect never to feel like a whole person, because I'm so aware of the fragmented nature of many of my emotions, the plans I have for my life, the elements of character that are never fully present or rounded off.  in the same way, I like to see sculptures of a goddess with no head or arms, or just a piece of torso.  Temple ruins and the remains of a civilization make much more sense in pieces than if we were to come across a ghost town intact expect for the human citizenry.   

 Decay, corruption, falling apart, memory, traces of the past -- these are all aspects of life that are with us every day.  They may hint at failure, ignorance, or some other imperfection, but they are a significant dimension of all kinds of life, including our own interior experience."

This morning I had decided that I would write something about my own inner search for depth and meaning in my art.  I have several photos of journal pages that I wanted to share here and I randomly decided to post this one.  When I looked at it closely and read the quote, which I had quite forgotten, it seemed amazingly serendipitous.

After several years of making art I have hit a point where I want to go deeper.  At this point I don't know quite what that means but I am searching for answers.  Part of this process has been analyzing what kind of art I love, what I'm drawn to, what makes me quiver inside.  I have realized that I like fragments, bits and pieces that don't really go together in a logical way, but when put together in the same space by an artist develop some kind of synergy.  I like the look or torn paper, fraying fabric, and multiple layers.  Art that has some kind of mystery about it delights me.  I think I love abstraction precisely because I don't know what it means.

It had not occurred to me before re-reading this quote, that the reason I am drawn to fragments, chaos, and complexity, is because that is so often my own internal landscape.  Before I begin to sound like I need to be committed I will also state that I am also drawn to bright colors, and beauty.  So now I have a better understanding of what I like and why.  The tricky part is how to pursue these revelations as I make art.

Aqua, Violet & Olive Journal Page

When I am working on art projects I often have paint or ink that I don't want to waste so I will open my art journal and use it on a random page.  This affords me the opportunity to see if I can marry the facing pages to one another.  Sometimes it doesn't work out, but often I can find a way to carry the colors or themes across both pages.  Reading Randel Plowman's book "The Collage Workbook" inspired me to try making a word collage.  How wonderful to find that I had words in my collection in the colors from the facing page.  This color scheme happened by accident.  The right hand page had been gessoed, and one day I added the aqua/turquoise paint.  Another day I was testing out two handmade stamps I had created with fun foam, so I stamped the violet paint onto the page.  Yet another day I was using my new Adirondack inks on something and "stamped" the wet stencil onto the same page.  All very random, and yet it ended up yielding a color combo I probably would not have thought of but I really like. 

I often wonder what my art journal is for.  I play around, try new materials or techniques etc. but when I am working in the journal I often wonder if I am wasting my time.  I make "pretty" pictures and imitate other artists.  I'd like to see my journal leading me toward the development of bigger more finished/polished art pieces, but so far that hasn't happened.  I suppose at the moment my art journal just serves as a place to work in that creative mental state.  So much about practicing art is a matter of faith.  I have to have faith that the practice moments, the moments that don't lead to a fully formed art project, are just as valid and important as working on something more concrete.  When you are an artist that works full time at a non creative day job, it is easy to feel like your precious and rare art time is wasted if you are not working on a "real" project.  Just screwing around feels like wasted time.  I have to have faith that all this screwing around is teaching me something even if I don't realize that I am learning. 

New Journal Pages

After six months or more of working on a series of stitched pieces I finally decided it was time to wrap things up.  I put away the sewing supplies, sorted the fabrics I was using back into their color coded scrap bins and moved on.  For months I've been saving things I wanted to add to my art journal and thinking about taking a different tactic in approaching my art.  So far I'm incredibly frustrated, but that will be another post.  I've created several new journal pages that I'd share.  This is just one of them, but getting the rest of the pictures sized for posting will take me a little while.  Which is okay, really, as it will give me something more to post over the next week or two.  When I started this journal I went through and cut windows and page edges and other things, and collaged various papers etc. randomly throughout.  The other day one of my co-workers was wearing an outfit in shades of teal and copper that I really liked and I wanted to do a page spread with those colors.  I thought they would like nice on the pages with a window peeping through to an unfinished spread in purple, bronze, and old paper.  I'm sort of channeling Michelle Ward here, as I decided to try cutting out a mask/stencil of a leafy front and apply it in different ways on the page.  Loved the effect!

More to come.  Right now I have to go bug the lovely ladies as SAQA for advice on another issue.  Too much to do, not enough time, and I don't want to spend all day at the computer!  LOLOL.