15 years ago and coulda been yesterday....

I have posted a video of one of my past visual journals in my quest to get them all up on the Red Chair website. To encourage you to visit there, I'm sending you over with the link instead of posting the video here.

Preview.....

I struggle a little with the whole idea of posting these anywhere. Art journals are the rage and they are all over the internet. I enjoy looking at what others have done and being inspired by them. I kept visual journals for a long time before they took off. Mine were never meant to be public, although I hope they will be passed on after I meet with the angels. I love revisiting them, and often do, filling some pages left undone before. Some of them are less about "art" than being"visual" in journal form, though I use the terms interchangeably. I use these journals occasionally for celebrating and for some venting about little frustrations - nothing too deep and diary-personal here -but mostly for making art, experimenting with ideas, and recording the times in which I live. I let the bits of news I save and the quotes I use reflect my opinions. (It probably wouldn't take long for someone to figure me out.)

Creating videos of these journals is a ridiculously long process, and I am wavering whether worth the time it takes. Then again, it feels a little like the book you write but never publish, the journeys you take but never record, and the shared histories you never share.

Walking Jordaan

My first walk in Amsterdam took me through arty Jordaan on a gorgeous day. Loved finding the "Gevelstenen"...artistic plaques on building fronts that served as early "house numbers" or advertised the trade within. 

Oh I have been busy with teeny things that grow into big things. Lots of hours on the phone with Apple support (and can't say enough about the quality of their support, which is awesome...) trying to work magic with Photos and iPhoto (which no longer really exists) and how to keep my photos from being EVERYWHERE in DUPLICATE but not being able to find ONE special one in all that that prints and that "events" no longer exist, unless you want them to, but they are really "albums" quite surpassing the albums formerly known as "albums"....And moving files to the new desktop Mac without migrating them (who wants to move all the junk that accumulates on a computer after awhile, huh?!) ... Well, you get the idea. Also sewing up a little apron for my friend Carol's charity event, and tweaking the page above which took a whole lot more time than I meant it to.

Also, our temperature  yesterday matched a record high 95. Yuk, too hot. But today is cooler and quite nice and the rest of the week should be typical beautiful Pacific NW summertime days.

Visible Peculiarities

One thing led to another on this plaything today. I believe I milked it for all it's worth.

A Garden Carnival

Had a dream last night, one I hadn't had before...
It 'twer a flower carnival, and on the garden floor
More toots and ballyhoos and whizzes in the air
'Twas fine and dandy, a visual candy, my imagined floral fair.

Flowers on left and right are the fruits of Lesson 1 in Carla Sonheim's Crazy Flower Mini-class. 

 Some other resolutions as they evolved  on a new page. Really does sum up goals for the year.   Well, besides the French, Photoshop, and world history/geography thing in my last post. Yah I had forgotten that geography goal. Tired of not knowing where all those African, South American, and Asian places are at crossword puzzle time.

delicious

Hello Summer. Now get to work.

These long light-filled days (hello, again, summer, June 21, we have missed you as always), even the cloudy ones, inspire me to catch up on things at my nice big table overlooking the greenery of our yard and yards beyond. This week I worked on a few visual journals current and past, enjoying the fruits of a One-thing-leads-to-another day. Sometimes those days don't end up with products but rather a storehouse of maybes and memories. I'm so grateful to have the time, energy, and desire to have them. I have a LONG LONG list.

I also have spent lots of time through Sunday papers of today and some past weeks. What a news and essay junkie I am. It's a cruse. I know it. I get so much pleasure from finding all this stuff; but my piles of that Very Same Stuff grow more than I can handle. There is SO MUCH interesting going on in this world to, gladly or sadly, take our minds off the bad news. Of which there is so much.

On my Did You See? page I'm posting the links or summaries of what I've captured just this week. I know many readers have not the time or interest. But if you don't go over and look, let me just warn, you may miss stories that contain these gems.

I was 31 before I got my heart broken...I had loved and lost plenty of times, but I had never let myself feel it. I numbed up....I fell for him so fast, and as if through space, no planet in sight. (But then), it was over...I would sob and wail in my car...crying in public, crying as I wrote in my journal at Dunkin' Donuts, as I biked home...but I marveled, too. I marveled at the feeling of being heartbroken.
          Modern Love, Lily King. NYTimes, 22 June 2014

'I think of myself as an intelligent, functioning adult,' says the writer Julie Klam, who has a daughter who just finished fifth grade. 'But my God. Do you know what a 'math lattice' is? No, you do not. The way basic math is taught now, it's not like A plus B equals C. It's more like A plus B, and then you run out for oranges, and then you take the subway. My daughter's recent assignment was like a buffet of confusion.' Several years ago, my fellow parents and i got so involved in an assignment that I suggested it would be best if we kept our kids home and just showed up for their classes.
            Opinion/Judith Newman, "But I WANT to Do Your Homework." NYT, 22 June 2014

The residents and shoppers of Abbot Kinney, the trendy Venice retail and restaurant strip, know her as the tall redhead who emerges in an evening dress and a big hat to police behavioral infractions big and small.  
   Scene Stealers, Brooks Barnes, NYTimes 22 June 2014

Have Pages, Will Travel

Some of the signatures made in Mesa workshop last weekend and putzed with since…love lots of color but now will work on toning it all down to post some pictures, drawings, thoughts….

Is this fun or what? 

Tool Time

Husband Bob  just cleaned out the kitchen tools drawers. (He's the cook in the family so it was understandably annoying him more than me.) Among the amazingly large pile of Stuff We Don't Ever Use and What Is This For? and Do We Really Need Twelve of These? tools were a few I rescued for a second life in the studio.

Work in progress, playing with my new tools.

So I am putting these on trial. I've set aside a little place for them. I  used some to start a page...Hmmm...I may like that serrated circle edge or interesting potato masher pattern. And the little handle on the ...what-is that-anyway-a-special-salt-or-sugar-thingabobbie?....has a clever pattern for spraying.

The boy in the photo is my great uncle Les who I figure was about 3 at the time. Which makes this photo more than 100 years old.

This was part of a vacuum thingie for wine to keep oxygen out.  We don't have a bottle long enough in our house to make that matter much. :)

Promise. If I don't use them again in the next, oh, couple of months  (I shall put it on the calendar), they will lose their second life. It's just that I cannot resist a Texture Maker or Pattern Producer for the life (much more than second) of me.

There is no now.

I have challenged myself in this journal to use these two items as part of the art: one of my daily news or comments clippings (alas and alack i am a clipper), and  photo from the hundreds I have in boxes. And, in addition, use a part of the image already existing on the page, since I am using a book from the shelves of Half Price Books. (This one is a favorite choice. It has photographic tricks on each page, showing the original photos and how the images were combined to make the "trick." Provides humor and creative diving board for me.)

I built this spread on an essay that appeared in the paper earlier in the month that spoke of Jewish philosophy that reminds us there is no "now" in the calendar. Our future calendar is rather bare but our past calendar has memories and experiences upon which to build memories and plan futures. It spoke to me, since my past is bigger than my future, much to my dismay, but trying to cope.

Mapping 2014

My "assignment" - Create a map of 2014.  Jill Berry's Facebook group, Arty Cartophiles, were challenged to create a map of 2014, share on our blogs, and invite you to see others in a blog hop this week (Jan. 13-17) at her blog or here.   (http://personal-geographies.com)

Hmmm...I could go abstract on this one. I could use a real map as a background for a map painting. What to do, what to do, I pondered this one for awhile.

I flipped through an unfinished journal of pages that I had started with backgrounds and found one that had a grid made by a stencil spray. Grids mean maps to me, so that's what I chose. The page was too large for my scanner, so there are two close-ups followed by the full page taken with camera. I see that I forgot to add, on Hopeful Way, Cubs win World Series. I must do that.

I had lots of fun creating little streets and using map symbols and references. I'm not crazy about the design, a bit bottom heavy and lacking a good focus (not to mention a title!)  But, that's a map, eh? I did make a "route" of blue to lead the eye through town. Although it's not a river, it kinda looks like one, so that's a bit mappy, too, I think.  As I add more through the year, perhaps it will come together.

Making this map pushed me to solidify my goals for the house and for my art and for my wish to grow the Red Chair Studio.

Nothing to Get Hung About

Another journal entry....

 

For this particular journal, besides using news of the day as a backdrop (whatever the news was...probably Governor Christie's traffic jam problem, since obliterated - the paste, not the problem, it would appear -) I also have promised myself to include actual photos from my boxes of photos covering dozens of years and before me, too. I could have filled the page of course with photos of our cats sleeping. Nothing to get hung about, ya know - just take a nap.

I have been a busy (artful) beaver

...to mix my metaphors.  Some journal pages I played with this past week, when the year stretched out before me and it felt like I had extra time on my hands. Not a feeling I get a lot.

I am enjoying building pages upon news of the day. There's an Everly Brothers article and 50th anti-smoking article here. I love the Reagan ad, when he was a mere actor hawking Chesterfield cigs. (In the decorative Christmas carton for discriminating smokers.)  This is the spread with the half-page included. I like to make pockets to hold full articles for later enjoyment.

 

A Done Deal

Two-page journal entry for today. Started with the DONE DEAL Boeing headline, being with mixed feelings about the news:   good news for keeping Boeing in Seattle, not so good news for the future of pensions. Anyway, built up with ephemera from card and gift from a lifelong pal...there's a 1967 picture in there as proof.  Used paper I painted in Mary Ann Moss's SEWN online class and reminded myself to make some more this week. It was such fun and the papers are a blast to use.

Ooo.. just noticed. Must go back and etend those whiskers, poor fellow.

I also enrolled in Making Maps Skillshare workshop. There are some creative and inspirational personal maps other students have submitted. I love maps, so  I know I'll enjoy the map project..still thinking about what to do.  Right now, you can save $10 on your first class (my class was only $20). Go check them out. I saw some good classes listed - calligraphy, hand lettering, poster design, among others.

And, finally, I recently spent an hour at our library so I could view all the videos on Teesha and Tracy Moore's Artstronauts site. Vimeo videos just don't work well on my laptops, either one, but they flowed along like the Mississippi at the public lbrary. Talk about inspiration. Are you an Artstronaut yet?

Journal Play

On my awfullest attention-deficit-like days, I find my focus gone and flit from one thing to another.  Today was one of those days. As I started to sort through the piles upon piles of studio STUFF (last minute packing grabs, bits and pieces of memories from trip, you know, you know, you know..), to start the clean-up process, I came across something that inspired me to look at one of my older journals.

So I filled some pages.  

 

These was made from a bad photo of long daffodil leaves that I manipulated and then worked the background with paints and crayons. 

. 

Most of my journals are unfinished (if "finished" is ever an option anyway),  and I add to them as I find pictures, or draw things, or glue the papers in my life. Then I searched out some photos from early 2010 I hadn't done anything with, and then I played with those with apps and Photoshop

Amazingly, I fended up with five more pages. Didn't get much cleaned up, though.

In the interest of variety and because I get bored with the same thing easily, my journals run the gamet in size, structure, handmady-ness, bindings, and paper. This particular 2010journal is out of order, inconsistent in paper quality and size, and needs firmer binding; but it's coming together and, like all of my visual journals, 35 and counting, it gave me a kick to browse through it and remember days. Cliché alert: Seems like yesterday.

 

No animal was harmed in the taking of this picture. Maybe embarrassed. Rosie was Plimply-ed here.

I goofed up at the bottom in my spacing, but I don't mind.

And, yes, I do keep track of these crimes. When I can. It's a full-time job. 

Fortunately...

We have arrived back to Roma for our week at a real Italian villa.





Unfortunately, we left behind my laptop luggage at the airport parking garage. It is still among the missing and having done what I can, do not hold out much hope of seeing it again.

Fortunately, I had removed the laptop and I have it, and it has all my travel photos tucked away.

Unfortunately, the power cord is in the missing luggage and I am out of juice.

Fortunately, I was wearing clothes when we left it behind.

Unfortunately, all my other clothes and scarves, old and new, were in the luggage.

Fortunately, I finally have a day to journal and sketch and blog from my photos and memories.

Unfortunately, most of memories are in that bag on SD cards and notes.

Fortunately, (and it is a big one), I had saved photos elsewhere and will have them when i can power up.

Unfortunately, I cannot share all I would love to.

Fortunately, i know how to put things into perspective. I am not being shot at while shopping at a mall or teaching 1st grade or rescuing all my belongings from a raging fire. And I am at a lovely place in the world right now with many best and longtime friends.

-Posted with BlogPress on iPad.

A traveler's lament...

Half dones. Journals, postcards, notes to build memories. A  traveling journaler's frustration. 

I am wanting to photo. I am wanting to draw. I am wanting to share. I am wanting to see. I am wanting to journal. I am wanting to meet people. I am wanting to be with friends. I am wanting solitude. I am wanting comraderie. I am wanting peace and quiet. I am wanting more time. I am wanting to forge ahead. I am wanting to linger.

I am wanting to blog.

Quite obviously, I am not meeting all of my wants. Of course not. Perhaps soon I will find the time to put what is in my head to paper. To postcards. To you who have come here by intent or accident.

Annual Check-up.

Before moving my "blogroll" (do they still call it that?) to my new web page as a separate list, I decided to visit each of them to see what they are up to. This will take a bit of time, but I'm sure it will be great fun and inspirational. I'm limiting myself to 15 minutes at each site (unless the spirit overtakes me) lest I fall in a huge ethernet hole. Here are the first three:

1

Today, I revisited: http://www.4ojos.com/  who are really Antonia Santolaya and Enrique Flores. I enjoy the flip through sketchbooks. Here's one.

2

98 Pages . Holy Cow, what is not to admire about the design of this web site. Now I remember why I included this guy. Love, love this brain. Another flip through a sketchbook of a truly innovative artist. Creativity, thy name is Craig Frazier.

3

Cathy Gatland draws and paints sketches from South Africa. I enjoy her sketches immensely: very fresh, spontaneous. She is an active Urban Sketchbook member. Urban Sketchers has a new online store of prints of sketches from around the world; she has a couple there, unless they've not surprisingly been sold by now.

Cathy Gatland

Have you seen this online mixed media magazine?

Drawing a Day, Day 3

In Jill Berry's journal texting class...some of the interesting tools we used today.