Inner Excavations...I Open My Heart...

Poor Inner Excavations...with all the shiny things that distracted me, I let this work fall to the wayside a bit.  But I did not forget it entirely...I just had to circle back...the long way around.  But here we are...

Chapter 6 in IE is called "I open my heart..." and deals with community and encourages collaboration with another artist(s).  Which are awesome things!  

I've said it before and will say it again...I would not be where I am if it weren't for all the dear friends I've been lucky enough to get to know because of the art journaling, through Facebook groups or here on the blog.  I love each and every one of you gals!  I wish I could smooch all your faces and give you gigantic real life hugs!  I can't say enough about the encouragement and wisdom I've received.  

I love art.  I love art journaling.  I like to think I would feel the same way even if nobody ever saw my work or cared about it or thought it was good...even if everyone else in the world thought art was stupid.  BUT I'm so glad that I've met people who share my love.

I think community encourages growth.  For me, the lovely friends I've met turn my head...you guys help me to look at things in a new way.  I can't count the number of times I've made something I thought was REALLY bad and shared it with you all and it never fails that someone will look at it and point to something about the piece that they liked.  It makes me look at my work with new eyes!  Or somebody will use colors I might not pick and it will turn out so wonderfully it makes me want to try those colors.  Or when someone finds a new technique or thinks of a really unique prompt and they share it...you guys get my wheels spinning all the time!  You give me a gentle push to try things that are a little out of my comfort zone...and that's a big part of progressing as an artist!

So with that in mind, here is what I made for this chapter's spread:

Look at all the fun stuff!

For this, I used a lot of goodies from care packages I've been lucky enough to receive.  I also used some ephemera that I had in my (not so) little box of random stuff.

The clover image is a tag made by my friend Jana.  The crackling I did on it by covering it in UTEE and then cracking the UTEE coating.  The scarf on the lady is also from Jana, it's a piece of a tea bag.  The cool envelopes are from Anna (even though on the black ones I just used them flat and not folded up like envelopes...) I love the map one!  Anna also gave me the washi tape (except the polka dot one and the birds on wire...they're from my stash) and the big number ones.  The picture in the middle with the stones on it is from Laura, as well as the orange bus pass.  And then the blue dress in the bottom right of the picture is from my Pamikins.

On this side, there are things from my friend Rose (that 7, which I adore!) and my friend Rachel (the chevron paper and the green sparkly flourish and (I think) the yellow tickets) and my friend Christina (the sheet music, and the two die cuts that look like plants).  And the sequin waste stencil in the background was from my friend Jackie and my sister Marian!  

The thing I really like about this spread is that it reminds me so much of my friends!  The bright colors of the background remind me of my friend Boo...she likes bright colors.  The face in the middle I made during the 29 Faces challenge, so when I see it I think of all the new people I got to meet by participating.  The collage aspect reminds me of others friends I know who have collage work as a special talent.  And then all the bits and pieces were sent to me by my friends and fellow artists!  The more I look at this spread, the more I love it!  All those interesting pieces "shouldn't" go together, but somehow they work together to make a cool image.  I like that you can look at the spread as one piece, or that you can look at each individual element and it's interesting either way!  And this spread made me realize that I like collage...as long as I don't have to cut out the pieces!

Sweet and Gentle...Face 1 of 29

I am super excited for the 29 Faces challenge!  You all know of my enduring love of faces, so this challenge seems like the perfect one for me!  You can click on the picture below to find out more about 29 Faces:

My first face is in my huge Dylusions Creative Journal, which you may remember is also the book I am doing Inner Excavations work in...I'm actually killing two birds with one stone on this spread, first face and the IE spread are one and the same.

Napkin (from my darling Pamikins!) in the background, die cut flower border thingie (from the kind Laura E.), acrylic paint and Microns (black for girl outline, sepia for lettering...should have done both the same, but my black one seemed to be sputtering it's last...)

I had grand intentions for this spread, starting out with the beautiful napkin from Pamikins.  I rarely get too uptight about what I want something to look like.  I have a general idea of what I want to happen, but because my imagination can do a lot of things that my hands haven't learned to do quite yet, I try not to get too persnickety.  But with this page, I was a little over-confident.

"Self," I said, "self, we are going to do this, this, and this...it's going to be easy..."  And right there was the point I should have stopped myself, because the logical side of my brain knows that me and plans NEVER MESH!  But my logical side kept her mouth shut for some reason, so I forged ahead...  And, through a series of what I'm going to call critical errors, what was in my head was absolutely NOT what came out on the page!  

But all is not lost...I do like what ended up happening...it's just not what I planned for it to be.  Luckily, I do have more of the napkin to work with, I only used about a fourth of it in this spread, so I get to have a do-over and I can try my grandiose plan again...  And since I know what my critical errors were this time, I will at least make new mistakes next time!  

The positives on this page are:

• I experimented with a different color scheme.
• I like that the Eiffel Tower from the napkin shows through so clearly.
• I like that there is an interesting perspective, the girl looks in the foreground and the Tower in the distance...neat!
• I LOVE that I got to use some of the goodies from the care packages I've been sent.  (Thank you beautiful gals for the goodies!!!)
• I like the concept of the wind/breeze blowing the hair and dress.
• I REALLY like that the girl extends outside of the border I made around the edge of the pages.  I've seen that in other people's work, and I think it looks so awesome when people do it!

The questionable things for me were:

• The color scheme...I'm glad I went for something different, but I don't know that I am super enthralled with it.  
• I kind of didn't give this poor girl a neck.  I don't know what happened...  But she just looks a little neck-less to me.
• My lettering skills are something I really need to work on...I have complained about my horrible handwriting long enough, I need to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
• I love the concept of the blowing breeze, but the execution is not correct.  I need to work on showing movement a little more smoothly.

So there you go...that's my 'realistic' critique of my own work...what do you think, is it a reasonable one?

I wish I could figure out how to get more accurate colors in my photos...the highlights in her hair are not bright yellow like they seem to be in this picture...  They are pretty contrast-y, but not quite as harsh as what the camera picked up...

"Hold on to the good with both hands, and let a sweet and gentle breeze blow over you and steal away the rest so you can be light and free."  Thank you to Boo for the idea of holding onto something with both hands...she said that in a comment once, I think in reference to joy, and I liked that phrase so much that I had to put it in a page! 

As far as the Inner Excavations work, the chapter I did this week was Chapter 5: I Look Closer.  This chapter deals with what we see when we look at ourselves.  There were some prompts to take self portrait pictures, and so I did that...nothing too spectacular came about...I've seen my face...so have you if you've been reading the blog for a while...  This chapter (and the whole book, really) deals with the internal aspect as opposed to outward appearance.  And I kind of giggled to myself a little, because when I think about the art I've been making and the things I've been writing on the blog, it seems like everything I do, especially lately, deals with my inner self.  I've made a lot of changes, and there are still a lot of things I want to change as well.  I've had so many highs, and I've had a few pity parties.  Since I talk a lot about myself in my spreads and on the blog already, I really wanted to make this spread be an overview instead of being specific.  So how do I see me?  I see myself grabbing up the good and letting the not-so-good get swept far, far away from me.  

When I first started making art and doing the blog, I didn't  have anywhere near the amount of self-awareness that I do now.  Seriously, go back to the beginning and look for yourself!  I made art for the sake of making art and then I showed pictures on the blog.  I wasn't always a blabbermouth about the squishy inside stuff.  I've never really been that kind of person...

I don't know when or how the switch happened exactly...I just know I view things a lot differently now.  I can admit to having emotions... (What? I have emotions???  I know, it was a shock to me too!)   Before, outwardly, I was in a constant state of denial or, in the very least, silence.  Internal-wise, everything stayed in my head, spinning around and around on a constant loop!  I was fixated on everything and nothing at the same time.  I never let anything out of my head, so it just stayed there and became a stagnant hurricane.  I couldn't concentrate on one thing long enough to work to fix it because there was so much clutter in there that everything fell into my lap at one time.  There was just no way to function!

At some point, I realized that I was doing art, but not art journaling.  I wanted to be able to look back at my life and know how I felt when I made a certain piece.  So I just started.  I'm sure I started pretty small, but I made myself put some little piece of me into what I made.  A little practice...and a little bit of forcing myself to do something I wasn't quite comfortable with...was all it took.  Once I started earnestly trying to get things out, they started to flow out really quickly!  There were (and continue to be) a lot of things that have taken me by surprise...feelings I didn't know I had, thoughts I was entirely unaware of!  I could put something onto a page and it would stay there...it would quit circling around in my brain!  I could pull out all the bits and pieces, put them on a page and form relevant conclusions!  I could look at an issue and think about it rationally...I could analyze it...I could figure out what was behind it and what I could do to change it if I wanted to!  I can't even begin to explain how much of a relief it is.

When I write about it on the blog, I kind of feel like I'm getting to share, not only my art, but also my life...my inner workings...my progress and setbacks.  All my life, I've kind of felt like a lone weirdo in a world of people so different from me.  Normal is boring, I know, but it's pretty lonely if you've always got the feeling that you're on the outside looking in.  Since I started sharing all this beautiful mess, I've gotten to know that other people feel the same as I do, or at least that they understand where I'm coming...it's an amazing and beautiful thing!

I think it was C.S. Lewis who said "We read to know we are not alone.", but for me, I want to change it to write.  I write to know I'm not alone...and for other people to know that they're not alone either.  At first, I wrote the blog so that I could share my art...I wanted critique...I wanted validation...I wanted someone to tell me I was decent...or at least to tell me how I could become better.  I can't lie, I still kind of want that! (Haha!)  But now, more than solely being about trying to make art, I want to write all my jibber-jabber that goes along with the art...I want people to know that they are not the only ones who feel a certain way.  I want people to see the good parts and the messed up parts and everything in between.  Every time my brain spits out some randomness, I want to type it out as fast as I can and look around and see who else feels the same way...so that both of us can know we're not lone weirdos!  We're at least a group of weirdos...and if there's a group of us, we can't be that weird after all.

Inner Excavations Week Four

This week's chapter for Inner Excavations has been "I see me..." and deals with how we see ourselves verses how other people see us, as well as the whole 'body issues' thing.  

In a previous post, I showed the photo I used (of myself) as a basis for this painting, and it was fun for me to see what people's reactions were.  I've done this before in one of the Facebook groups I'm in too.  It's also happened to me at my job, where I talk to people extensively on the phone without meeting them...then when I finally do meet them, it's interesting to gauge the reactions.  I tend to get a lot of "That's not what I thought you'd look like...at all...".  I get that one a lot when meeting the phone conversation type people from my work.  I honestly think that one's due to the fact that I have a phone voice that is what I like to call "high school cheerleader voice"...which does not really match my physical appearance so much.  It makes first meetings a little bit of a let down for the other person, if said person is interested in the ladies...  On the positive side, I could easily get a position as a phone sex operator if times got tough.  

I also get a lot of "cute" and "adorable" comments.  Which I'm totally good with...I mean, I AM cute and adorable!  :)  But it's taken me a really long time to come to terms with that.  One of the ladies I work with likes to tell me "Not every man likes a skinny girl...it takes all kinds."  Which, is true, although I think it comes with a little bit of pity/this-is-the-nice-thing-to-say attached when she says it.  There are totally guys out there who think thin girls are grody and thick girls are made for cuddling.  I'm married, so their opinions are pretty much meaningless for me either way.  But they ARE out there my single thick girls...way more than I realized when I was a single lady...so don't lose hope! 

Three years ago, when I first stared at the job I'm at now, before anybody really knew me/knew I was married, I had three separate incidences of guys being interested in me as a...'lady friend'...bow-chicka-bow-wow.  It was the craziest thing that ever happened to me.  I think mostly because I am oblivious to flirting. You basically have to honk a boob or try to suck on my tonsils before I realize you're being anything more than friendly.  So I never really think people are flirting, I just think they're being nice.  But these were pretty direct advances that even oblivious ole me could pick up on... 

I was telling my sister about my experiences right after they happened (because they kept getting progressively more...forward...and if there had been one more, he would have had to just pull out his wiener and slap me in the forehead with it for it to be any more "forward" than it was) and I remember that the thing I was most surprised about was that 'these guys don't even know me'. 

As I told my sister, I am, and have always been (except for the year and a half of being a skinny girl when I was 19/20 years old), the kind of girl that is friend first, building into more.  ALWAYS.  I mean, I'm not a hideous beast monster or anything, but I'm no prize pig either...and I tend to win dudes over with my personality.  (My personality is really sexy! haha)  I don't just catch somebody's eye when I walk past them!  I'm not that girl!  But here were three different instances in close succession which told me otherwise!  And I was kind of freaked out by it!  They were messing with my reality!  

This was part of my sister's response, directly quoted out of the email she sent me when all this happened (I keep the really important ones!  My sister is a wealth of knowledge/info/hilariousness!): "Obviously, you are not as physically ogre-like as you tell yourself because people do find you attractive even without [knowing of] your cunning, wit, and charm...not to mention your crafty skills..."

This was a big turning point for me, I think, regarding how I viewed myself.  Before this, I basically knew that people could 'get past' my physical appearance because (as previously mentioned) I have a good personality...but here was three separate evidences in short order that some people actually enjoyed my physical appearance!  That was an entirely new concept for me!  I basically learned that maybe that guy isn't looking at me because I have something stuck in my teeth...or a low hanging booger...or whatever.  Maybe that guy is looking at me because he thinks I'm hot stuff!  It was a radical concept for me...

I guess, more than thinking about how I see me vs. how others see me, I have been thinking about how I see me now compared to how I used to see me...because I didn't really have an accurate idea of what others thought of me at all.  I used to think of myself as plain...boring...annoying to others... an acquired taste...a total weirdo that was 'off-putting' to most people.  As I've gotten older (and possibly wiser), I've come to see that I was looking at things in the wrong light.  I'm not plain.  I'm cute and adorable!  In general, I'm DEFINITELY not boring...  I'm not annoying or off-putting, people like to be around me...people choose to be around me.  I might not be everybody's cup of tea, but for some, I'm their favorite flavor! 

The reason I say that this is more about how I see me than how other people do, when all the above things have to do with how people view me, is that, while I'm changing and growing as a person, I haven't completely overhauled my personality.  I've progressed, I've gotten rid of a lot of baggage, and I've matured, but for the most part, I'm still the same person.  Outwardly, I haven't changed a whole heaping huge amount.  But inwardly, the person I am now is vastly different.  I could have felt confident in myself all along, but I didn't.  I could have accepted (what I view as) my quirks and understood that those 'weird' ways are what make me interesting...but I didn't.  I wasn't at that point yet.  

I saw this quote a while ago that says "The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are."  I think that in my case, it should read 'accepting who you are'.  It's taken me thirty years, but I finally am learning that it's ok to be who exactly who I am.  Sure I have faults and flaws that I want to work on, things I want to improve about myself, and ways I still need to grow as a person...I'm sure I will continue to grow and evolve till the day I die...I hope so anyway.  But learning that, overall, at the heart of everything, who I am is just fine, that it's something to be proud of...that's been a real privilege for me.

And so here's the finished spread for Week Four of Inner Excavations: 

"I move forward.  I look at the past with love.  I will not look back with regret, because regret will only hold me back and I am determined to press on.  I am a work in progress and I am moving forward all the time.  Nothing can stop me.  I am a constant work in progress..."  The "I move forward" and the part on the left page are both stamps, the rest is just my (attempt at legible) handwriting.  The "I move forward" letters didn't show up well (there are pretty designs in the letters in the actual stamps)  so I went over and colored them in so that they would stand out.  I like that they are so BOLD! 

Thanks to Mo and Pamikins for the help with the journaling on this.  They both hit the nail on the head with their suggestions, and I really like the message combined with the painting in this.  It makes me super happy!

I did make a few changes to the face in this, including adding some shadow to the hair and changing the nose.  Thank you to Bibi for the suggestion about the nose, I think it is much improved now, and thank you to  Raine for pointing out the angles being different...it worked out much better with that new photo as a reference for the shading.  Now I feel like I've got two new tools in my arsenal of face making skills for the future as well!!!

I had written a lot of this post before the whole hospital stay happened, but just finished it up today.  I am still pretty puny, but am feeling even better today than I did yesterday, so fingers crossed that I will continue in the upward direction!  Thanks for all the well wishes and sweet words from yesterday's post.  I promise I will get back to all the comments, it's just gonna take some time, but I don't want you to think I would forget!  I am sending squishy love in all directions to meet each of you. <3

Work in progress

First, I want to jump for joy over the fact that when I got on Blogger this morning I saw that you guys have made me hit 4,000 page views while I was not looking!!!  It was 4,046 when I looked at it!  You made my day first thing this morning!  I am trying to think of a giveaway for when I hit 5,000 and if I don't come up with something soon, I'll run out of time!  You all are making this happen REALLY fast, so THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! 

Because I'm scared I'll go to the dentist today and get all drugged up and forget to post, I figured I better do something before I head off for the day...  And since I don't have anything finished to share just yet, I thought I'd share a work in progress that I've got going on.  This is my paint over collage that we learned about in Book of Days with Effy Wild.  I am using it for my next Inner Excavations spread, so instead of a picture from a magazine, the picture I started with is one of me:

Gratuitous bathroom picture...also, I totally crocheted that cowl!  

And here's what I've got so far:

My nose is giving me fits...and the hair...I ALWAYS have trouble with hair...

I really like the face overall!  And for some reason, I am LOVING the really strong colors!  They make me super happy, and they're not colors I'd pick usually I think...especially that background color...but I like it a lot...

I'm trying to think of some kind of quote or journaling to put in the background...something about being determined maybe...I think the face looks very determined/set on a goal of some kind.  So if you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them!  

All right, now I've got to run or I'll be late...  When you hear from me again, it will be from a mouth with one less tooth and, hopefully, a mouth with 1/4 less pain than when I started!  Yay!!!

Inner Excavations Week 3

I 'finished' my spread for week 3 of Inner Excavations today.  Finished gets quotation marks, because I'm thinking I may add a little bit of personal writing in there now that I've photographed it.

I'm a little behind, thanks to my fabulous trip to Ohio and the horrible amount of overtime I've been working since then...but that's ok, it's not a race, right?

This chapter, entitled "I gather..." deals with the things that we collect.  Maybe you saw my cheating post from yesterday...the post I posted so I could post SOMETHING.  Well it was fifteen minutes till midnight when I started that post and wrote in in all of five minutes, so I thought I should go back and re-read it because I doubt the intelligence of my brain when it's almost midnight and I try to use said brain for thinking...

I laughed as I was looking at it this morning, because despite the fact that it was a post for the sake of posting, there is a lot of real life truth going on in the picture in that post.  And by that I mean, WOW what a mess...

But I also mean, in that messy picture, there was a lot of meaning for me.

Someone once told me that the reason I collected my various creative hobbies was because I didn't have anything better to do.  He said that I did these things because I didn't have a life.  Egads, it broke my heart when he said that.  At the time , I did what I always did: I wrote a poem about it.

Analysis

I'm tired of writing pretty words 

and making pretty pictures to pass the time.

I think I must create these things 

to forget myself and that I mind

that I can't feel like others do,

and only to forget a moment.

Things will never be as they once were.

The time for it is lost to me and can't be found again.

I think I finally understand 

actions I could not comprehend before.

To be loved is not enough, 

a person needs to feel it.

My heart refuses to understand.

And friendship isn't going to fix it

and I long for someone to hold my hand

without having to believe it's pity, 

without having to believe it's a lie.

But that never comes.

So I keep writing lines 

and I keep making marks on blank pages

to pass the precious time.

I wish he hadn't said what he did 

because he ruined my words 

and he ruined my pictures

by telling me the truth:

that I wish I didn't have to write

and I wish I didn't have to make marks

but that's all I have.

Even though that's not a life, 

that's all I have.

I don't know if the person who said those things to me realized what he set off in my brain.  I don't think it was said with malice.  It was just an offhand statement.  But for a long time after that, it was hard to do anything creative.  I guess I resented my artistic side.  Because my brain kept adding things to what he'd said: If you were pretty, if you were thin, if you were more interesting, people would want to be around you and you'd have better things to do than waste your life sloshing paint or sewing toys or crocheting scarves.  My brain kept telling me that the only reason I wanted to be creative was to make up for what I lacked in other areas.

But because I don't listen to my jerk brain for long when it starts spouting crap like that, I decided to grab my brushes and an art journal and figure out the real reason I wanted to be creative.

And what I figured out is that I LIKE to be creative.  It makes me HAPPY.  I can't sit there in front of a television for hours a day like 'normal' people do.  I couldn't stand that!  It's not relaxing to me.  It does nothing for me but waste time.  And yeah, maybe I 'waste' time doing my creative stuff.  But here's the clincher...WHAT ELSE DO I HAVE?  At least when I MAKE something, there's an end result!  There's something that I can look at and say "I did that, it made me happy to do that, and I grew as a person while I was doing it".

The over-analyzer in my brain knows that maybe there's a little bit of truth in the statement that I wouldn't do these creative things if I had a life.  Or, more correctly, if I had a different life.  I have a life.  If I had a different life though, in all honesty, I probably wouldn't be creative...at least not as much as I am now.

The big issue for me is kids.  I don't have kids.  It's just not in the cards for me.  I've talked about it before, so I won't go into detail in that regard, but I will say this: If I had kids (a kid, whatever) I probably wouldn't be so creative or at least wouldn't spend so much time with it.  Not because I wouldn't have as much time, although clearly that's a factor...but it's more about the fact that kids are...proof that you were here.  They're your legacy to the world.  When you die, there will be someone to remember you, because you were their mom or dad.  I don't have that.  I'm never gonna have that.  So how will anybody remember me?  Sure I have nephews and nieces and co-workers and all that, but how much easier will it be to remember me when you're looking at a 6 foot long crochet snake that I made?  And you'd know more about me...clearly, that I'm fun...and that I really LOVE my nephew (because I DID NOT want to crochet a 6 foot long snake...but I did...because he asked for it, and I love him...).

I art journal in case this technology is not available at the time of my inevitable demise....

It's the same with art journaling.  If at some point I die...and they haven't perfected Futurama technology (...you know, that whole 'living head in a jar' thing...) my art is still gonna be there.  For someone to look at and say, "so that's who she was and how she felt"...

To quote Edna St. Vincent Millay:  "This book, when I am dead, will be a little faint perfume of me.  People who knew me well will say: "She really used to think that way.""


In the end, you want to know what I really gather?

"I gather wisdom"  

I gather wisdom.  It's not always like picking flowers...it's not all beauty and fun and good times.  I think it's more like mining diamonds...it's dark, its dangerous, sometimes people die, and there are times when you question whether all that effort is really worth it.  But, you know, there's tremendous value in wisdom...infinitely more than there is in diamonds...

Dylusions over washi tape and using stencils.  Then craft acrylic and black sharpie for lettering.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that there will be an end result.  I do enjoy the immediate benefits of the self-knowledge I gain every time I work in one of my journals.  But there's accumulated value as well.  One day, I know I am going to feel like a complete person.  The complete person I choose to be.  And I learn more and more about the person I want to be, the person I'm ACTUALLY BECOMING every time I let myself do something creative.

I think this is quite a comical looking owl for such a serious topic, but hey, I am an mish mash of all kinds of stuff, it's ok if the cartoonish owl represents something deep and meaningful!

Going back to the moral of the story...do I think I "wouldn't art journal if I had a life"?  Not really.  In fact, I honestly believe the art journaling is helping me create a life...helping me reclaim my right to my own life...helping me to live the life that I choose.  

Inner Excavations Week 2

Ok...so you know my usual disdain for the hippy dippy/emotions/hard stuff...well, fair warning...  Be prepared for the opposite side of that today...also for a lot of talking...

Chapter 2 in the Inner Excavations book (IE) is called "I seek".  It deals with looking into the past, but it also talks about our senses and noticing the details around us in any given moment.  

These days, I'm pretty good at noticing the details around me.  For instance, this morning I was noticing that the ceiling fan was casting shadows on the wall that circled around me like a mini strobe light.  It's still doing it, and it's very distracting now that I mentioned it...  I heard the scratching sound my favorite pen makes when I was writing some journaling.  I can smell this little tiny left-over smell of cinnamon from an almost empty plug-in air freshener in the kitchen.  

The hard part about this chapter for me was looking into the past.  I don't have a lot of memories about my childhood.  If I think about it really hard, or if I talk about it with other members of my family, then I can remember specific details of my childhood.  I can pick out pieces of certain days that were good.  

There are also a lot of unpleasant things that come up.  I've learned to deal with these things over time.  I choose not to dwell on the bad stuff that happened to me as a kid. Maybe one day, when there's money for a therapist, then yes...but for the most part, I've got a handle on it. I know what's there, and I know that I didn't deserve it (no one deserves bad things...not even bad people...but especially not children) or cause it.  I also recognize that, at a certain point, you can't use these things as an excuse anymore.  Of course I've been shaped by the things I went through, but I'm an adult, and, as such, I am the one responsible for my actions now.  It's taken me a long time to come to terms with that.  It's something I still struggle with.  But I do struggle, I do try.

Of all the things that bother me about my childhood, the thing that bothers me the most is that there wasn't a permanent place where I felt safe to be myself.  There was a lot of "this is right" and "that is wrong", which isn't bad in and of itself.  The hypocrisy that I grew up with, however, was very wrong.  It was confusing to a child and caused a lot of resentment later on.  I learned to be fake at a very early age.  No one can know the truth.  People don't need to know our business.  People don't like sad people, so you just have to be happy all the time.  It doesn't matter whether you're actually happy or not.  These are things I still have a hard time with.  I feel the need to conceal my feelings about certain things.  I feel the need to smile even when I'm a wreck.  If it does manage to seep out, I apologize for it.  

I think it's one of the reasons I like this blog so much.  Because I can just be myself.  If people like me, that's great.  If not, that's fine too.  I am working to make my real life, the day to day person I am, more like that.  It's hard, because online I've met a lot of really supportive people.  I can say what I need to say and they aren't telling me I should think a different way or be a different person.  I don't feel like I've really got that as much in my real life.  I feel like I can't share things.  I get the eye rolls when I talk about certain ambitions of mine.  There are things I've learned not to share because they are judged harshly.  I've heard 'you wouldn't care if you didn't know it was wrong' more times than I can count.  The thing is, sometimes I'm not ashamed of these things, but I don't want the other person to be ashamed of me either.  And that doesn't work, because we have different outlooks.  It's not anybody's fault, it's just how things are.  

So when I thought about all of that, it occurred to me that I'm looking for my 'home'.  I'm longing for a place where I can be entirely myself and be appreciated and encouraged, instead of feeling like I'm squashed into the mold of another person's ideals.  And I think that most people are looking for that 'home' in some form or another.  Maybe a few very lucky people already have it, but I think that, for the most part, it's a place that doesn't actually exist.  Because we want that 'home' to be perfect, and it's just not going to be.  We either have to take what we've got and learn to live with it or we've got to find a way to make what we've got change into what we need or else we've got to leave what we have where it's at and start looking for something more.  

I had all that in mind when I made the assemblage piece for this weeks chapter in IE: 

On the inside, I'm just a crusty, bearded, weather-worn sea captain wanting to go home.

When I went to do my journal spread for this chapter, I had a slight shift.  I was thinking about this evasive 'home' I long for and realized that I feel like I've had it and lost it.

There are a lot of extra details I won't go into here, but I'll give you the gist of it.  

I had a very dear friend, Leonard, who was this home for me.  He was smart, funny, kind, insightful, and a million other things that made him precious to me.  He was the first person, the only person to date, that made me feel accepted for exactly who I was.  There were no outside reasons for him to like me, he had nothing to gain from liking me, he didn't have to like me.  But he did, simply because I was me.  And I believed it.  It's pretty much the only time in my life I've ever felt that way about someone...everyone else has a reason, everyone else has something to gain by befriending me...not Leonard.  

And he was a great friend.  He could be obnoxious and arrogant, he fought his demons but sometimes he quit fighting and let them reign over him.  Even then, he was the best friend I've ever had.  He would listen, actually listen, when I talked.  When I asked for it, he would give me good advise, tell me all the pros and cons of the different choices, and then tell me to go do what I wanted.  He'd make fun of things I'd do and in the same sentence he'd tell me he was proud of what I'd done.  He didn't make me feel inferior or that I was wrong for doing, saying, or thinking a certain way.  And he was the only person I have ever known that would ALWAYS tell me the truth.  Even when I didn't want to hear it, even when it was hard and I hated him for it, he never once lied to me.  I think it was my favorite thing about him.

Three years and a few months ago, Leonard killed himself.  There are a lot of extra details that come in to play that I won't be talking about here, to save the feelings of those that remain and because, frankly, I've cried enough this week.  

Looking back now, I think that there were things I should have noticed.  But you never really believe someone you know will do something like that...even once it's done, you can't believe it.  It takes a long time to accept it as the truth and so, so long to get to a place where you feel like you can breath again.  But then you have bad days and good days...I still do, and I think I will for the rest of my life.  Everything I do has his ghost in it.  I wish I could tell him things.  I wish I could hear his voice giving me good advise.  I wish he could see and experience all the things I see and all the things that happen in life.  He lost so much.

When it gets really bad, I write him.  Sometimes, they're long and sprawling letters.  Other times, they're just a sentence or a snip of a thought I'm having.  It helps though, either way, to get it out of my head.  I thought I would share the most recent thing I wrote (before I did the journal spread): 

"Sometimes I still catch glimpses of you, even though you've been gone for so long now.  It's hard to think about how life goes on in all the insignificant ways, how I get older and you never will.  I know I see you with rose-colored glasses, that my memory of you has become hazed over with half-truths and even entire lies and that no one would ever be able to live up to that harsh standard of perfection you've set by dying before your time.  And I hate so much that this knowledge is in my head, crammed down deep, next to the strong desire to find someone like you, when the truth is no one will ever be all of the things I know you were and all of the things I have imagined you had been.  And I feel the years and I feel the weight I carry and the burden that you've forced me to take possession of and this hollow person you've made me become: trying to find this beautiful thing that will never be found again, that was really never there at all."

I know that I'm not the only one who lost him.  I know that he touched the lives of many people.  And, honestly, the whole world is less for having lost him.  For all his flaws, he was a good person; there aren't a lot of those left.  

After he died, I started looking for someone like him.  To take his place, I guess, or to make up for what I lost, or to make it easier at least.  I look for pieces of him in every person I see.  And that's not fair.  No one will ever be what he was.  Because even he wasn't the person that is in my mind now.  His flaws are glossed over to the point where they never existed...and he was flawed, everybody is.  That's the way we are, and I'm sad that I've lost those pieces of him.

That's what was on my mind when I worked on this week's spread:

Inner Excavations, Week 2: "I seek"

Left page, close up:

This poem is by Lang Leav, and it fits the way I feel.  It's entitled "Closure":

Like time suspended,
a wound unmended-
you and I.

We had no ending,
no said goodbye,

For all my life,
I'll wonder why.

Right page, close up: 

The diagonal journaling that goes across the two pages is just some free writing I did.  This is a painting I did of Leonard, which doesn't do him justice (he was a very handsome man and I am an unskilled amateur at painting), but it does give me the impression of him over all.  The black shirt is actually a tip-in (I think that's what they call them), and you can see that in the picture below.

The black shirt lifts up in this way.  There is more journaling on the page, and then on the back of the tip-in, I wrote the poem I had written for this weeks prompts (basically memories and senses), which you can read below.

This is the 'memories and senses' poem I wrote:

I hear him say my name

and the words "I love you" rolling off his tongue

like his was the only mouth I was ever meant to hear it from.

I taste the cold on his lips 

and the warmth that radiated from within

like all the good in the world came from him.

I feel his hands running up and down,

slowly, over the length of my arms

like he was the only thing keeping me safe from harm.

I see the electric light

pulsing in his throat under the skin

like this was the moment we would always live in.

I smell his shirt:

lightly cologne and laundry soap so clean

like he was the innocence in this world so mean.

I know that life must teach us things

but life keeps showing me again and again

that beautiful things cannot last, as if I didn't know it then.

The thing about the past is this: it's over.  Whatever happened, it can't be undone, only dealt with.  The hard truth is that no one knows what consequences their actions might lead to.  Kind people consider the options before acting.  Foolish people either don't consider this or they do and simply don't care what the results will be.  And then there are people who are so afraid to make a move, afraid of what their actions will cause that they do nothing.  These people are basically martyrs.  I mean this in that they sacrifice something of great value over principal.  They suffer for it.  They end up being victims.  Because time and other people's actions make the choices for you if you don't decide for yourself.  I've been all three types of people.

These days, I feel like a martyr and a fool.  I have all these thoughts in my head, things I'd like to do, ways I'd like to be, but I'm so afraid to make the move.  Then I get resentful and I jump into doing stupid things that I don't really care about just to be able to say I did something.  Or in the end, because I don't choose, someone else chooses for me.  Time keeps ticking.  Opportunity passes with every second.  Going with the flow is fine, but if you never swim against the current, you end up in an ocean of someone else's troubles.  

And I hate it.  It's stupid and it's weak.  I only get one life.  I don't want to come to the end of it and regret that I live someone else's version of my life.  I want to live MY life.  I want to live it for me alone.  And I want to live it so that I can be proud of it and so that the people who have helped me along the way can be proud of me.  I want to live it so that if Leonard was watching he'd be proud.  He'd know I've learned the smart and beautiful lessons he taught me while he was here.  

I've spent too much time thinking about what I don't want, who I don't want to be.  Time has been wasted not being myself, hiding myself away.  I'm done with that.  The time has come to start being the person I am and thinking about the things I do want.  And not just thinking about them, but actually working to make them happen.  

Inner Excavations Week 1

No ICADS this time...I got myself all in a tizzy about messing up the prompt order (I don't know why it's such a big deal to me, but it REALLY is! *angry eyes* ) and haven't done any to the point of finishing and sharing them since.

Actually, I am thinking I am going to wimp out of ICAD...or not wimp out...but...um....back off?  I started doing the ICAD cards because I wanted to do something creative every day, and I liked the idea of something simple and small and tossable if it was too hideous.  And that worked out awesomely for a while. Then I got so involved in doing the cards that I would do them instead of other art.  I think this is where I lost my way...I didn't lose interest, mind you!  I still think it's a great idea, and I am pretty sure I will pick them back up again at some point.  But for right now, my general feeling is that messing up the prompt order and all the CRAZY PERSON amount of stress that resulted from something so little is my brain's attempt to signal me that it's time to do something else for a while.  I love my art journals way too much to neglect them the way I have.  

So, anyhow, I'm thinking that I will do a card on days that I don't have time to do something else or when inspiration is being a hoochie and shaking it in somebody else's craft room.  I feel like the ICAD does deserve a round of applause because it did last a couple weeks for me, and usually my attention span is... wait, I see something shiny...

I am actually starting a different project, which kind of makes me feel like ICAD's slutty girlfriend who left him for someone else...  I'm sorry ICAD...it's not you, it's me!  We can still be friends... *guilty eyes*

In lieu of ICAD, I am starting the Inner Excavate-along over on Effy Wild's blog (as suggested by my friend Wendy).  I am going through the book Inner Excavations-Explore Your Self Through Photography, Poetry, and Mixed Media (by Liz Lamoreax) along with some really wonderful and interesting people.  You can read more about the excavate-along (and join in the dig if you want!) HERE.

As I have mentioned several times in the past, I am generally not a fan of (what I consider to be) the hippy dippy, and when I first skimmed the info on Amazon, I thought that's what it was going to be...  But I went with it and, so far, it has not been too bad!  

Instead of the usual spouting of 'you can do it' and then giving you step by step projects to copy, this book focuses more on the ideas and tasks leading you into being creative, and what direction it takes is entirely up to you.  It is more of a mental and emotional workshop than anything.  And NOT in a fruit loopy way.  It does encourage you 'be present' and take in things that are going on around you.  And to look into the why behind what your thoughts and feelings are.  And you have to know, I am a big fan of the why!  

There are not step by step projects, but there are some really pretty pictures as well as suggestions and tips for inspiration.  I think this would be a great book for people who tend to compare what they do with other people's work.  You know, they follow all the directions and it doesn't end up looking like the picture in the book and then it's a failure in their eyes.  In this book you're really just given inspiration and left to decide for yourself what to do.  I actually REALLY like that aspect!

I like that it involves art, poetry, and photography.  I, of course, LOVE art journaling.  And I have always enjoyed poetry, both reading and writing.  And I do have the desire to start taking more pictures...  So maybe this book was the right thing at the right time after all.  The pictures in the book are just gorgeous and it makes me want to go crazy nut-job with my camera...  

All of the above made me realize I was judging a book by it's cover...how cliche am I???  Stop being so judgmental Sweets!!!

I decided I am going to do a two page spread each week for the art portion of the tasks.  I am using my Dylusions Creative Journal (AT LAST!!!) for this.  It's so much different than what I'm used to...for the sheer size of the journal alone!  Especially considering I've been doing 3x5 ICAD cards for the past three weeks, the 11x8 pages are just HUGE!  I think this is a good thing for the excavate along, because I have the tendency to try to get an entire page done in one day.  I know it's going to be impossible for me to do that in this gigantic journal!  I need to take my time and really consider the information and suggestions in the book, and I think having this huge journal to work in will make me take my time and really THINK about things, instead of just trying  to (semi-mindlessly) make pretty pictures with a quickness.  

So, the point to all that blabbing is that I (shockingly enough) really enjoyed doing the first chapter.

And here's my first two page spread:

There were some really interesting ideas for the photography portion.  I decided that since this is supposed to be exploring self, I would do some awesome bathroom mirror self-portraits.  I feel the need to express how much I am not a fan of having my picture taken.  The whole time I was thinking I might as well be a teenage girl...  It was all I could do to take it seriously and not do the duck face girl look...or the thumbs up cheesy smile look... or the looking off in the distance for some reason look (ok, full disclosure, I did do this one)...  Instead, I did the 'try to make sure my face is actually in the picture look' and the 'I can't see the button, did I just take the picture?' look...  I'm cool like that....

Here's a closer look at just the left page:

I don't have a great printer, and all my photos for this project are going to have to be printed out on it, so we'll just have to get used to grainy photos.  I  tried to use it to my advantage a little bit and make them look like vintage-y photos.  The only one I didn't do anything to is the photo in the middle of this page.  The others I used paint, gelatos, and some other things to age them.    I had done this background a while ago, and , in the beginning, I hadn't planned on using the huge Dylusions journal for this project.  But after doing the poetry prompt, it jumped out at me to work with this background, and I think it works.  I really liked that the stamped girl in the top left was looking down over the page, so I wanted to play with that idea and take it farther.  In the top right photo, I am looking down at my phone (to see if  I am in the shot).  Now it looks to me like I'm looking down at the drawing.  I did the drawing from one of the photos I took that didn't make the cut.  (See, I DID do the 'looking off in the distance for no reason' picture!  *hangs head in shame*)  So I think the drawing looks like she is looking at the middle picture, which is neat because this project is all about exploring 'self'.  I liked the middle picture, because to me it looks like I'm STARING INTO YOUR SOUL!!! BWA-HA-HA!!!  I don't know.  I am not great at thinking about myself although you probably wouldn't guess that from the blog.  In all reality, I guess I don't actually talk a great deal about myself (the deep inner workings part anyway), usually it's the art and then I explain the thought behind it.  This Excavating is like a whole huge Sweet Red Clover bonanza!  

Here's a close up of the right page:

More of my face...I hope you guys love my face, because it seems like you'll be seeing more of it...spattered all over the AJ pages...  I like that there happened to be the peacock feather down in the background I had done.  It fits, because I am pretty proud of myself for going into this thing despite my qualms.  It's been really enjoyable and interesting so far!  And I do love it when I am pushed to go in a direction that is outside my norm...like the photography thing.  Speaking of, I know I am going to have to work on the photography a lot, because these pictures really don't show the brightness of the background at all!  I want to blame it on my camera and say that it doesn't pick up high contrasts well, but really it probably does and I just don't know how to do that yet...I'll work on it.  You know me: practice, practice, practice is my mantra!  On a side note, check out my huge hands!  I swear to goodness, I have ACTUAL MAN HANDS!  They are crazy big, right?!?  ...sorry, that was just a side note...  Anyway, this page has the poem I wrote for the 'Just Write' portion of the chapter.   I stuck with my narcissistic theme and did most of the thoughts starting out with 'I' phrases.

Here is the poem I wrote for the writing portion.  (It's hard to make out in some places in the photo) :

I am a still life painting.

But I am not the color.

I am the black 

the white

the haze

that makes the colors pop off the page

necessary in small doses

but abhorred just the same

for my light and my darkness

neither of which can be discarded

but somehow still so hard to appreciate

"If only she were this instead of that"

or "that instead of this"

but I am not.

Your eyes are drawn away by color

by the noisy crashing of brighter hues.

And you do not really see me.

I begin to see cracks, fissures in my flawed nature

opening wider, 

being pried apart by desperate fingers

spurred on by eyes longing to see what's hidden inside.

I stand resolute but silent:

I am not the song being sung.

I am the catch in the throat, 

the strangled cry.

In my heart I call to you.

I call only your name.

I desire to make sense of  

this curse and gift

like any other, to find meaning 

in things that seem 

so meaningless

so transient, 

so beautiful, yet all in vain

That first part of the poem is what made me think of the bright glorious background I had done in the journal. Then the additions I did, my pictures and the text and drawing and things, were black and white or very bland neutralish colors.  I like that it ties in with the poem in that way.  

I can't wait to see what next week brings about...I'll have a whole week to play with the book this time.  I only just got the book on Friday, and kind of cheated a little by using the background I had done so that I would not feel rushed to keep up...not that you have to do it that way, it's just my slightly neurotic way. Now I'm left with clean blank pages to work on for all the other week...so no cheating can happen!  If the rest of the weeks are as awesome as this first week, I doubt I'll have any problems with 'cheating'...I'm looking forward to digging in full force and really getting down to the roots.

Wow, that was a long ramble!  I'm off to shovel some dirt now...