MelonTime
Originally uploaded by jimbradshaw

Love Jimbradshaw's work. Dense little pages full of little characters. Great stuff.

I wrote in my previous post abut my late night walks across campus. These used to freak out my friends and roommates. I used to hear things like, "Aren't you afraid of being attacked?" "Raped." "Mugged" Fill in the blanks I heard it all.

At 1 and 2 am on campus I never saw another person walking. Never.

More importantly I was never afraid. UMaine was a big campus, around a mile square, an well lit in most areas. There was something divine about walking it when there was no one else around, no cars and near silence. Just me and the hum of street lights.

My 2nd year my friend and I took Painting 201 together across campus from our campus housing. The studio was in a chemistry building near my old dorm. One night one of the painting students found a woman in the bushes outisde the building raped and beatten. I slowed my late night walks, though the incident occured at dusk. For several weeks I remember feeling pent up, easily aggravated and hyperactive.

In the end a friend of mine and I put vodka in waterbottles walked campus together and got drunk. Giggling in the fresh snow, we made snow angels and wandered to a friends place. We ended up getting a friend to take us skedding* across campus. That night I met up with a guy with a completely tricked out hot rod, with full black leather seats, front and back, and a super cool purple and silver paint job. He was dating a friend ofa friend of a friend. The guy with the hot rod ended up taking people skedding. I distinctly remember giggling hilariously as I slid back and forth around the back seat and bouncing off my friends.

I never lived in fear, that came later, with age and moving to the city. City life fills me with fear and anxiety in such a way that life in the woods does not. It's interesting, when I first moved here I dind't feel fear. I continued much of my same behavior. My friend Sarah and I used to wander Boston late at night, blue and pink haired idiots.** We'd wander her and there, to the park, ride the T. Sometimes in silence and sometimes having intense conversations about art and life. Many of my friends thought I was dating Sarah, but she's like a sibling to me, a little sister I never had. Today we don't see each other often enough and I miss her, and our conversations. But those memories of our fearless walks of Boston and Cambridge warm my heart.

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I want to tell you a secret so that it’s not a secret anymore. I want to share it with you, so you can see that I feel it too. I want you to know that you are not alone.

I self censor in my journals. I know I tell you not to. I don’t want to.

The critic that lives in my head tells me in soft whispered tones, “No one wants to hear that. No one cares. No one wants to know.” Or he’ll* say, “If you die tomorrow, won’t you be embarrassed by that?”

Sometimes I tell him to eff  off and work the way I want in my journal. I don’t always show those images to you. Some things must be private. My internal struggles can’t all be shared.

Some of my older work is overtly sexual, I’ve never shown much of it online, and never any of it on my blog.  Why? I’m not sure. I remember doing some of the nudes I used to work on and my roommate at the time used to refer to them as scary vagina pictures. He found them creepy and unsettling. That always bothered me, but I suppose that watching someone explore their interior thoughts and sexuality could be difficult to someone who wasn’t doing that in a visual manner.**

Anyway, my point here is that self censorship sucks. I do it because of, for lack of a better word: FEAR.

Yeah I’ve got it, just like you. I fear what people will say, what people will think.

I question how do I live fearless? How do I explore the dark stuff in my head?

I’ve got a journal. It’s a small thin journal; I’m going to start to fill it with dark stuff. Dark writings, stuff from the deep dark recesses of my head. I’m going to force myself to get comfortable with that part of me. After all the dark stuff, the stuff we keep hidden is part of us too.

Try to beat down the inner critic with me, conquer that fear.

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molsk(e)
Originally uploaded by agridoce21

I love the dots.

Skull 158
Originally uploaded by [rich]

Lovely little skull sketches by rich

I'm completely in love with everything this art journaler does. It's so raw and painfully honest.

Love love love the use of the birth control package. 

See her blog here.

I grew up in the woods. Its quiet there, very quiet. I also grew up in a fairly quiet household. My parents are reserved people who used to watch little TV and read books for most of their entertainment.* I became accustomed to quiet and solitude. For fun during much of my childhood I spent hours wandering in the woods, cutting down trees and building forts. It wasn't until I was 11 that Debbie moved next door. We became fast friends and she had many of the same interests as I- walking in the woods, shooting BB Guns, cutting down the neighbor’s trees and spying on her brother. Debbie and I spent hours on end and days together, much of it silent. We did talk, goofy child talk, crazy plans to build bugs for her brothers room (many of which were realized) but sometimes we'd get to work and be silent.

When I went to college life was GO all the time. There was always something going on in the dorm, someone doing something crazy, often times me. Young hyperactive kids without parental supervision and with unfettered access to drugs and alcohol** does not make for a good combination.

GO GO GO

The pace of life was different. Getting a moments peace sometimes required me to walk late at night, alone across campus to the café, buy a coffee and walk to the dock. Depending on the season I'd sit on the dock in the orange pink glow of the street lights, sip the latte with my feet in the water. I'd revel in the relative silence of the dock. The slow water of the Stillwater River chilled my ankles to a delightful shade of purple and the quiet lapping of it against the dock. Silence and quiet solitude. It soothed my frayed nerves from a GO lifestyle to which I was not accustomed.

As that year wore on, I learned better how to close my door and buckle down and study but I was still easily distracted and made frequent trips home to gather myself together.

In my 3rd year of school I spent a good deal of time sketching and drawing the view from the dock. Such a simple view that meant the world to me when what I needed was solitude and silence, such things some up in my work often. I latch onto places that mean more to me than others and I draw and paint them to exhaustion. West Quoddy Head, Roque Bluffs, Yoho Head, O’Bear Park, Independence Park, Dane Street Beach, Bad Little Falls. These are all places I’ve gone for solitude, quiet places to think, quiet places to sketch and draw, quiet places to gather myself and regroup for another week/month at GO.***

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Sometimes it's the little things in life that take your breath away.

I got home from work today fully intending to spend another 3 hours working from home. I noticed on my way in that some of the peaches on my tree were ripe. I dealt with the big stuff first, letting the dogs out, dumping the work laptop, taking out the trash and getting the mail.

Then I walked straight across the lawn to the tree, picked a ripe peach from it's limbs and bit in.

Still warm from the sun, the fuzz tickling my upper lip and juice running down my chin I realized, its things like this simple pleasure of eating a warm juicy peach in my ghetto oasis backyard that make everything worth it.

After that the DayJob slipped from my mind and I shifted gears from DayJob (that gear was totaly slipping all day anyway) back into artist mode. Colors, senses, emotion. Or maybe it was gardener mode as I looked at the rust spots that have transfered from my pear tree to my peach tree.

I also realize that I'm not a city girl. The farmer's genetics runs in my blood, the knowledge of care for plants, though I neglect them, is there waiting for a time when I'll use it. Biting into that peach makes me want to resurect that knowledge and care better for my trees, yard and myself.

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I’m happy to say that I was contacted by Lark Book’s craft publishing person to receive an advance copy of Gwen Diehn’s latest book, Real Life Journals to review. When I say happy, I mean, do a little dance around the studio happy. Seriously, I was stoked to get the book.

Like all of Gwen Diehn’s books this is well planned and executed. She has a particular design and art perspective that could put off some art journalers as she's very fine art focused but what I like about it is that it’s simple. She focuses on the fact that you don’t need a lot to art journal. You’ll notice throughout the book, most of the journaling spreads are done in pencil, pen, ink and watercolor. In the final section of photos some of the journalers get a little fancy with materials, but Diehn’s focus is simply pen, ink and watercolor. Sweet little watercolors dot the pages of the books as do well orchestrated photos of lovely journals.

Don’t take what I write as negativity, Diehn’s book is 100% a visual treat. It’s also well written in an easy to read conversational tone. Even if you’ve never bound a book this will be fairly easy for you to understand and make a book using her instructions.

I like the idea of choose your own adventure type of way to select a type of binding for your journal. With so many options it’s an easy way to make the choice. I highly suggest that you read the book cover to cover first. It’s good.

She begins by talking about design and then moves into discussing with people who have used particular designs. It’s good stuff to help you decide what you want for your journals.  The section on tools is particularly good, though I do wish one of the bookbinding authors out there would write a section on how to use regular things around your house as tools.  The discussion is through and complete.

She has a section on adding pockets, windows and ties. She briefly touches upon things to use in your journal. (I have to point out here that I disagree with her on Golden liquid acrylics not sticking, they do, unless you use very little.) It’s a great introduction to methods and materials. Of particular interest is the section on “why you should write.”

The book is jam packed full of instruction and tips for making some great journals. The instructions are clear, easy to understand and brief. The only one I had an issue understand at first was the Reverse Australian Piano hinge. After I read it again I got it, but it gave me pause. The illustrations are very helpful in understanding the directions.

She spends a lot of time on covers, decorating them and how they can be used to spark your creative juices. I particularly loved the section on journaling and its history. She finishes the book off with a gallery of great journal art.

Over all I’d rank this up there with Gwen Diehn’s other book and Alysa Golden’s as a must have for the beginning bookbinder or art journaler.*

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Today in my UStream I gave a tip on how to fix a warped and damaged canvas, with something as simple as water. I did a tour of my studio and explained everything… Then I did some shout outs and worked on a previously damaged canvas. I did a canvas with lots of color and running of paint.

Sadly it didn't record. I'll have to do another studio tour when I finish the cleaning.

And I have more damaged canvases so I can do my magic fix the canvas trick.

Here's some link love from the show:

Juriaan's twitter also his UStream

Connie of DirtyFootPrintsStudio

Jan Fox's Class on Artjournaling.ning.com Message her directly for more info

Willowing's World Of Whimsy

JournalArtista on UStream

The Artistic Biker

Poe made a journal based on my UStream instructions!!! (Video link)

I'll get some pics up of the art I made during the show.