High and Low

The prompt for Journal 52 this week was to use a photograph in your art in some way.  You can read more about that HERE. 

I love what other people can do using pictures and seamlessly blending them into their art.  Major gorgeousness!  I, however, am not very practiced at doing this.  So, because I don't actually have a huge amount of photos, and because I was scared that I would ruin one of the few photos that I do have, I used a photo from an Ikea magazine.  I think this is actually a really good way to practice putting photographs in your art, without the fear of ruining said photo.  I am going to keep practicing with magazine pictures till I get better, and then I will start incorporating actual photos.

So here's what I did:

I looked high and low.

First off, not to shabby for one of my first attempts, right?  I started off with a page that had spray inks already on it, I think from a failed experiment with stencils...basically, the page was a scrap piece of watercolor paper when I started out.  It was horrible looking.  

So I was going to just cover it over with some gesso and start fresh...but when I did that, the ink smeared around (duh, water-soluble spray inks!  I knew that...) and I really liked what accidentally I absolutely knew was going to happen...  

When it was dry, I glued down my magazine photo, and covered it with a thin layer of Glossy Accents so that I easily wipe away anything that accidentally got where it shouldn't get.  It ended up making the picture have those neat ripples in it, which I think makes it look like an older photo.  I imagine if I had done this with a black and white magazine photo, it would totally look like a weather beaten vintage pic!  Again, hooray for happy accidents absolutely knowing what was going to happen from the moment I started...  

Then I used gesso mixed with Dylusions to try and make the image look like it was part of the page instead of sitting on top.  I think this could be done a little more effectively, and I will try more/different things to blend it in next time. 

 Then I added the big lettering at the bottom, and when everything was dry, I took a white pen and did all that scribbley, messy journaling around the photo.  Yes, there are words.  Yes, that is my actual handwriting.  Yes, I can read it.  I know!  I keep telling you I have 12 year old boy handwriting!  To get to the point where I was sure no one else could read it, I wrote down the page first, then turned it horizontally and wrote over that, then turned it diagonally and wrote more and then diagonally the other direction and wrote even more.  That's a good way to get things out of your head, while ensuring no one else will be able to read what you wrote.

I used this song as part of the inspiration for my page:

I think it describes my feelings pretty well in regards to the loss of my friend.  I don't walk around in a cloud of despair everyday like I used to.  I'm learning how to live with what happened, and be happy with the world as it is.  I don't look for him anymore.  I have stopped trying to find pieces of him in the people I meet.  It was driving me crazy to live like that.  And I'm better now that I have come to realize that, even though he's gone and even though no one else in the world will be exactly what he was, I am lucky to have had him in my life and I should take that for what it is and be happy for it.  And most days are happy days.  But the anniversary of his death was Saturday, and I have come to understand that it seems no matter where I am or what I am doing, May 10th will always be tinted with sadness for me.  I imagine that too will get easier with time, but I can't imagine never feeling at least a little sad.   And that's ok.  I don't think anyone gets through life with a pristine heart.  They're all all a little scarred or a little broken.

To paraphrase Rumi, the cracks are where the light shines through.  We take what we have learned from those we love, and we share it with others, consciously or unconsciously.  We empathize with the pain of other people, even if the reason for their pain is not the same as ours.  We just know it hurts, and we can feel that hurt in our own hearts.  Maybe we help them get through it in some small way.  And maybe we learn to love our scars and our broken hearts, not because we wish for them, but because of what they mean...because of who they've made us...because we're lucky to have them...  Because even though they're banged up, they're still beating.

A Tranquil Place in a Colorful Existence

Last night, I finished this week's Journal 52 page (you can read more about J52 and this week's prompt HERE)...just under the wire...but I did it!

This page had a long and odd progression, let me tell you.  What you see now is a FAR cry from what I started out thinking of:

"A tranquil place in a colorful existence"

...it was interesting to me how, like this page, our lives often end up no where near what we thought they'd be.  Even as I sat writing the journaling on this page, a tranquil place in a colorful existence, I thought I was writing about some imaginary future place...some place I might get to someday.  But when I started to think about it, I realized I already have it...

Someone once told me that the only reason I'm creative is because I don't have a life.  And I believed him.  I took his word as truth and internally bemoaned the fact that I didn't have a real life and started to feel sad about my artistic endeavors, because they were a sign that my life was less than everyone else's.

It took me a while to see it, but he was wrong.  He couldn't be more wrong.  

My life isn't what I imagined, but who's is?  I'm sick, I struggle, I have to work hard...but it's a good life.

My creativity isn't a sign of a lack of living, but a sign that I see life like very few people do.  

If you think about it, as artists, we see everything differently.  We find shape and color and pattern in whatever is around us.  We see beauty that others consistently miss.  When I walk around, I don't have my eyes stuck to my phone, I look up and actually see the world around me.  When I get home from work, I don't plop down in front of the TV and zombify, I sit at my desk with a brush in hand and transcribe all the glorious things I saw that day, whether anyone else can see it in my work or not.

I go to my job and I talk with people all day long who have lives similar to mine, but so vastly different that it's jaw-dropping.  I see lives and ways of thinking and motives that are so dissimilar from my own...but I see them, I understand them, I know what makes them the way they are.  I take influence from the people around me and put it into my art.

As creative types, we see things differently, and we think differently as well.  That's a gift, not a curse.  I could never be content to live a 'normal' life...there is no such thing.  I could never be a 'normal' person...again, there is no such thing.  Even if there was, I still wouldn't want to be like everybody else...I mean, have you seen everybody else?  

I think many people go through life with their eyes half closed, seeing only what they want to see.  As artists, our eyes are so wide open...we have no choice but to take it all in...and then we have the task of translating it for the rest of the world.  In small doses, we show people what they never knew they saw.  

Cesar Cruz said "Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable."  That's true, I think, and that's real power.  We have the ability to make people stop and look at things in another way.  How amazing is that?

So, no, my life isn't what I imagined.  I go to work, I come home, I make art.  To people looking in on that, it might seem as though I'm not really living at all.  But, my fellow artists, you know just how wrong those people are.  We get to hear, and feel, and see, and generally experience life on a level no one else does.  We see what's there, and we see what's hidden behind it.  We live our lives, however mundane they might seem, with a heightened sense of awareness.  And, to me, that is truly living.

I already have my tranquil place in a truly colorful existence.  I won't let anyone blur my vision again.

True Beauty...Face 11 of 29

Face 11 of 29...Hooray!!!  Here she is:

"So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls.
Why doesn't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women?"
 -Harriet Beecher Stowe

I love this quote so much.  It is so wonderful in it's truth.  

I've been thinking about how very lucky I am to be friends with many lovely ladies who are not close to me chronologically, whether by a few years or by quite a few... and take note, I am not calling them 'old women'...because in my eyes, they are my peers. Additionally, if I did, they would probably get together and beat me up!  

Seriously though, I think my sweet friends, the ones who happen to have lived a few years longer than I have, are the most vibrant, vivacious women I know.  They're funny, kind, encouraging and caring.  They know who they are and they are comfortable in their own skin.  I am grateful every day to get to be a part of their lives.  

I feel so bad for women my age and younger who overlook the value of our matriarchs.  They only have friends in their own age range, friends who are jealous, catty, drama queens...they are missing out on so much!  I'm not saying that's the case of all younger women, but I do see it a lot.  And I do know that just because a person is older it's no guarantee that they won't have those same bad traits...trust me, I work with one of them...I know they're out there!  

Maybe I've just been lucky that most of the women I'm surrounded by are full of good traits.  I learn from them...I absorb the wisdom they share with me...I truly appreciate each of them.  I can not imagine my life being good without these women in it.  

I think it's an odd thing that our culture often looks at older women as though they are obsolete, as though aging is a thing to be ashamed of.  Older women are often so undervalued, when really they are the most valuable people I know.  I will never understand why older women are looked at with anything other than reverence. 

Ok, ok, I step down off my soap box now.  I just want to say to my dear friends, who are slightly older...but infinitely more wise...than I am, I love you all very much.  I hope that, one day in the not-so-distant future, I can be to someone what you ladies are to me.   Big squishes for you all, my darlings.