warning Adult language ahead.

Earlier this week, or was it last, I've lost track of time, a post was put to the internet entitled "Put Down that Art Journal." It enraged me. I didn't bother to post a comment to the author as I wasn't sure I contain my righteous anger.

You see what she was commenting on was the aesthetic, not the actual act of art journaling. Well maybe the actual act, but you get what I mean. She does not like the how to books that give you instruction on how to use materials or as she puts it "torture a piece of paper." She also made a reference to gluing "shit to a page." I suppose we could all be cookie cutter art journalers and illustrated journalers and only draw in our journals and use watercolor on 140lb fabriano paper with calligraphy nibs dipped in only the finest of India inks.

Too bad for her the world doesn't work that way.

Fortunately for me it does.

You see. I like to glue shit onto my pages. Yeah, the detritus from my life, tickets from the T, bills, health care info, pill labels, bills I can't pay. All that shit goes into my art journal. I then add a healthy dose of gesso, glue, acrylic, and dribble india ink. I torture my page until it gives me what I want- a dirty grungy page that reflect the aesthetic of my life. Sometime my life is pretty watercolors and india ink, but sometimes it's ugly clashing colors peeling paper and wrinkled.

You don't like it? Too bad, it's my art journal. I'll torture the page all I want. The great thing about the internet? Click the red button on the top right of the screen, it'll get you out of here. 

Additionally I LIKE all the pages I see out there that have this look. I love the pages of watercolor and ink too. I like the refined and i like the raw, one is not better than the other. Sometimes stuff isn't for me, but it's not my place to judge.

The post was the kind of elitist crap I saw when I visited the art schools before I settled on going to a state university. The snobbery, the high and mightiness that I feel coming off the graduates,  the "I'm better than you because I have a degree from fill-in-the-blank-art-school."

Here's the thing, it's the secret of art journaling, it's for everyone; the assholes with the degrees, the former christie's auction house worker, the college drop out, the uneducated, the homeless, and yeah you and me. There's an aesthetic for everyone.

Here's what I have to say to anyone who says differently, "fuck that shit."