Friday, January 10, 2014

Art Journal Peek, Part II


In my last post, I shared the first half of the art journal I created in the beautiful book created for me by Janet Plant in a long-ago swap.  Today, I'll share the rest of its pages.
The journal is filled with positive messages and quotations, many of them from Patti Digh's book Life is a Verb.
I was still stamping "YES" on all the pages through the second half of the book.  It was rather cathartic, I remember, to stamp the word with its energetic exclamation point over and over again!  Almost defiant in the face of what felt like an overwhelming "life NO."  (It was last November, and happily, with the rose-colored glasses I wear when I look at the past, I don't even recall what was weighing down on me at the time.)
Ah, more reflections on that perfectionism that never leads to perfection. 
And more flaps!  This time, the paper lifts to reveal an image from a magazine I enjoyed (along with another quotation and a moo card I taped into place), and I journaled on the back of the flap.
I didn't add any writing to this spread in the journal, but found a number of fresh, green, garden-ish images, along with another moo card taped in and a tiny envelope I received from F.M. in one of our swaps.
I created another flap from a light-weight piece of green fabric, almost like an organza (says this fabric non-expert).
More YESes, more quotations from Patti, more collage pieces from my stash. 
Patti's book gives the reader lots of food for thought, to be sure.
And here we are at the back cover, with images of dance and meditation.
"We are fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance," says the Japanese proverb.
And from Natalie Goldberg:  "Our task is to say a holy yes to the real things of our life."  So appropriate for this journal filled with YES.  I feel like it gave me a solid, positive push into this new year, where I am refusing to fritter away my time, focusing instead on the better things, the real things, the lasting things.

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If you are a reader of romance novels, or simply indulge one from time to time as a guilty pleasure, I want to tell you about a newly available book you can download to your Kindle (or the free Kindle app on your iPhone) for only 99 cents (while the sale lasts!).  The book is called Found in You, written under the pen name K. L. Ruse.  The author, Kim Russo, is the parent of a little girl in my daughter's gymnastics class.  As we chatted one day in November, she shared the news that her book would be released in January, the first in the Lost and Found series.  Please consider supporting this emerging author by purchasing Found in You!  [Please note that there is another book available that is also entitled Found in You that is a pretty hard-core erotic read.  If you want, purchase that one too, but make sure you also get the one by author K. L. Ruse!]

9 comments:

Anne said...

I love all the flaps and hidden messages and sort of "wildness" of the pages. My new goal is to be less organized or stylized and let more freedom into my art journal. Thanks for the inspiration.

Jewels said...

Your art journal is fantastic! Well done...

uncustomary said...

I love that you were inspired by Patti, she's great. And this book looks incredible!

Joyfulploys said...

Hi Andria...I think I sent you a tea packet I detected in your previous post. I'm loving this look into this journal...it's very beautiful. Yes, make this a yes year...I'm trying for that also. I have never read Patti's book...maybe it's time I did. Have a great weekend!

Introverted Art said...

oh it's looking so beautiful. I love seeing other artist's journals.

eli said...

So beautiful, inspired and inspiring ;)

iHanna said...

I can definitely feel the YES in these pages, so yummy and full of fun. Thanks for sharing! Makes me want to fill a whole journal with just images and collage fun!

Carin Winkelman said...

Wow, what a wonderful journal. Love what you did with it. Working in a journal somebody else made for you feels like a special kind of collaboration. To make a book for your girls sounds like an amazing idea, hope it comes into being.

Parabolic Muse said...

Do you know that I have wanted to come here and see these pages for a week now and have just been watching time whisk by. (while doing a bunch of stuff). I find that I get inspired to use my paper and ephemera stash when you share your work. You do really interesting and eye appealing things with your scraps, and I just seem to hoard them! I have my rolodex cards on the work table to make for my swap with you (and haven't yet), and rather than do what I was going to do, I may just brave my stash of papers. Why do I feel like I can never find those neat looking bits again in my whole life!? Yours look great! I love all the flaps and anything interactive.

Okay, I probably won't put flaps on the rolodex cards.