Art Journal 2009

For Christmas 2006, my sister Michelle gave me a little suede covered journal. And in it she wrote a little sweet note about using to create. I have wanted to do an art journal in it but it is one of those things I always have thought in my mind "I need to do it everyday" so it stopped me as I knew I would never be able to keep it up everyday. So this year I finally gave myself permission to not create in it everyday. Mostly after reading Visual Chronicles and Living the Creative Life.

So I don't expect to create in it everyday, but I hope to capture either moments that were important to me or just be creative without worrying about the "right away." It is my test ground for things. It is where I can do as little or as much as I want. Whatever I need in the moment to express.

My first entry in it is my favorite as it really represents me right now and of how I have felt at times and especially in turning 40.



Quote that is on the left hand side is from The Mermaid Chair: "I lived molded to the smallest space possible, my days the size of little beads that passed without passion through my fingers. So few people know what they're capable of. At forty (42) I'd never done anything that took my own breath away, and I suppose now that was part of the problem--my chronic inability to astonish myself."

(the book had 42 but I used 40 for me although I am 41)

It is acrylic paint on the background with rubber stamped images to just give it a little more texture (I am all about texture) and beads glued on - and then a mermaid that I had in my stack of ephemera that I painted just every so lightly.