Community.
I’ve been thinking about this simple term a lot lately. When I found the art journaling community 7 years or so ago I was in awe at the great sense of community I’d found, online in a yahoo group. (Aisling founded the online yahoo group.) It spoke to all the great stuff I was doing in my journal and inspired me to do more. You can thank Aisling D’Art for me doing what I’m doing now. I was doing some of it already but really she inspired me to do more with my art journal.
To me art journaling online is about that sense of community. I was never into the competitive art school twaddle. So I’m always surprised when others are into it.
For me, my classes are not a competition. I do them first and foremost because I LOVE them. Seriously if there is one thing I want you to get out of my classes it is a love of and for art. The skills will come with time but that love of art, I want you to see that in me as I teach and I want you to feel it as you create. If you leave my class loving art, you will continue to work on your skills.
So yes, I do the classes as a business. There is money involved, I wouldn’t put money into the equation if I didn’t have to, a girls gotta eat.* But I don’t and won’t put money before the grand community of art journaling and art. I promote my friends because I believe in them. I suggest that my students do their own classes, because I believe in them. I believe in offering a hand up and holding on, because the stronger we build this community the stronger we all become.
Don’t get me wrong, if art journaling gets huge like scrapbooking, I totally want a piece of that pie, but I suspect I’ll take a route more independent of the big companies than others might. On that note, I’ll tell you I have big plans and it’s called: Art Habit. Ohhh secrets.
*yeah I could go without for awhile shut up!