Keeping the Hand Moving


I've been trying to up my journal game recently, and though I haven't kept any official tally, I've probably worked in my journal everyday for the past couple of weeks. It was easy to find time during my winter break to journal, but now that school has started up, I have been trying to maintain the habit. Doodling and writing seem to be the dominant forms of work, as I always have a pen or two handy.

I started the page above with the large face, and then I added orange watercolor to fill in the negative space. I randomly glued in a small piece of paper with a quote during a collage session in the studio sometime last week, and I added the squares and writing as a way to create a pattern on top of the watercolor.

Everyday, I am taking time to get my hand moving.

Text and More Layers


Slowly I have been adding to my pages with the crisscrossing text. (Check out this post to see how they began.) It's nothing earth shattering, but the accumulation of actions is building into something interesting. I recently added to both pages by creating black frames around square cutouts with ink. Placing a scrap of paper underneath kept the ink from getting onto the next page.


Next I glued in some raffle tickets that I've been holding onto since Art Unraveled since August. There was a big Saturday night event with Danny Gregory as guest speaker, and everyone got a raffle ticket. Prizes were given out, and at the end of the evening, there were raffle tickets left on nearly every table. I decided to gather up as many as I could. They have slowly made their way into quite a few pieces of art and quite a few journal pages. I like collecting fodder this way because of the stories and associations behind it. I could easily go out and buy a big roll of tickets like this, but they would have no meaning and no memories embedded in them.

I am enjoying seeing where this spread is going.

Faces


Over the last few months I have been experimenting with a few different types of images. I guess I'm in a period where I'm not focusing on just one thing. I think as an artist, it's good to mix things up and try new things, even if they seem somewhat contrary to a current line of inquiry.


I've explored mapping and monsters most recently, and over the past two weeks, I've been drawing faces. I'm not sure if they'll go anywhere, but it's always good to open your practice to new ideas.




Living on Purpose


I came across this phrase as I read Dr. Wayne W. Dyer’s Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling, and it resonated deeply with me. I had to stop immediately and write the phrase down before I forgot. The power and simplicity of this phrase struck me.

For far to long, I have been living life mindlessly, going through my days being pulled here and there by the whims of fancy. My life had become routine, and I was caught in a cycle of self-defeating thoughts. I had been swept along by the current of events and happenstance, and my life, at times, seemed like an endless stream of disappointments and resentments. Life was passing me by, and I definitely wasn’t living on purpose.

Over the last year, I have been trying to be more present in my life, and this idea of living on purpose sits so perfectly with where I am on my journey. Living on purpose is about living consciously and with attention and intention - attention to the present moment and the intention that I will stay fully aligned with my purpose and my joy.

In the past I felt like I was not living the life that I wanted to live. I kept waiting for the right time and the right circumstances, but that’s not living. I have made a conscious decision to live the life that I want to live, right now in this very moment instead of allowing life to pass by. I am a firm believer that we create the world in our own image, and the universe returns to us that which we put out into it. If we are filled with anger, frustration, and resentment and allow that negativity to flow out into the world, our world will be an angry, frustrating, and resent-filled place. If we stay fixed on the present and fill ourselves with joy, love, and purpose, we can allow that positivity to flow freely into the world. Our world then will be a joyful, loving, purpose-filled place.

I am working on staying present and aligned with my purpose.

Text and Layers


Writing is a big part of my journaling practice, and I write to record my thoughts, to work out ideas, and to reflect on life and art. But it's not always important that the writing stays legible. Actually, using the writing as a visual device and more like an artistic technique is a great way to get pages started. I wanted to share some ways I have been building layers with text.

I began a two-page spread by writing with a water-soluble graphite pencil and filling both pages. I washed over the graphite with clean water allowing the pencil to spread. 


After a few days, I highlighted some of the words with metallic, black, red, and yellow ink. The ink creates a lot of contrast with the surrounding page. Dave and I call these operative words.


I wanted to give the spread a bit more texture, and turned the book and wrote with black ink. The crisscrossing text helps to obscure some of the writing and creates a more even feel.


To create more interaction among pages, I cut holes through the pages with a craft knife. I cut through several pages and glued down the rectangle of text.

I haven't done much else to this spread, but I'll keep adding to it. I plan on adding some watercolor paint and collage, and I'm sure that I'll end up using some watercolor pencil as well. I love that I don't know how this spread will turn out. For me making art is always an act of discovery.

I'll post more as it develops.

Purpose



Why am I here? That’s the question that we all struggle to answer during our lifetimes. What is my purpose? That’s another way of putting it, and some people never figure out an answer. They spend their entire lives making a living, accumulating more stuff and more debt and more misery. When we are out of alignment with our purpose, we suffer. When we are in alignment, we flourish. It is a wonderful thing to figure out why we are here and what our purpose is. I think that I am figuring that out for myself.

I love art. I love making art, I love sharing my art, I love talking about art, and I love connecting through my art. And it’s that last part where my purpose lies. Hey, it would be great to sell art and make it as a professional artist, but I have bigger plans. I have a bigger mission in mind. I believe wholeheartedly that I am here on this Earth to help other people connect to their creativity. In my forty-two years of life, I have figured out a thing or two about creativity, and I want to share and inspire.

The thing is the word “creativity” has so much baggage attached to it, and it’s hard for people to really grasp it. Actually, that word scares a lot of people. It’s intimidating, and there are a lot of folks out there who will swear they have no creativity at all. But they are confused and confounded. Creativity is an innate human capacity. It’s our original programming. “If you’re alive, you’re creative,” to quote author Patti Digh.

But throughout history we have cloaked the concept of creativity in romanticized ideas and wrapped it in a veil of mystery and magic. Writers, artists, scientists, and philosophers of the past have written and spoken about creativity in enigmatic ways, but creativity is such a straight forward and simple idea. Ken Robinson says that creativity is about coming up with new ideas that have value, and we are all capable of that. However, fear, doubt, judgement, and misunderstanding all get in the way of seeing our own creativity clearly. Our world extols conformity, so it’s no wonder that so many people don’t believe in their own capacity for creativity. When we are so easily mocked, ridiculed, and chastised by others for our seemingly odd ideas, it takes a strong will to hold onto a unique way of being in the world.

But what if we could put the fear, the doubt, the apprehension, and the judgement out of our minds? What if we could simply be in this moment right here, right now? We would find a moment of endless possibility. No fear, no doubt, no little voice saying we’re doing it wrong. We would find the seed of creativity. Creativity isn’t an art thing, an intelligence thing, a genius thing. It’s a human thing, and when we connect to our creativity, we connect to our humanity on the deepest level.


In our ego driven world that is bent on keeping up appearances and having a fixed identity, it’s difficult to be in the moment. It is my mission to help others connect to the present moment where their authentic voice can be heard in full expression of their innate creativity.

Shifting Momentum


One year ago, I struck up a plan to change my life. I had spent 18 and a half years working in a job that was bringing me more and more misery with each passing year. Instead of things getting better the way you think they would as you gain experience and skill, things seemed like they were steadily getting worse. I was simply miserable. I was filled with anger and resentment, and I despised going to work everyday. I had dreams - big dreams, that weren’t coming true. But I was stuck. When you have a mortgage and bills, you need a way to meet those obligations. Teaching was my way, but it had turned into something that I dreaded. I was fighting against it, banging my head, longing to be somewhere else.

My life had become filled with a lot of “what if”s, “only if”s, and “if only”s. I wasn’t living the life that I wanted. I needed a shift. I needed a way out. For years, I had kept saying, “When I save enough money” or “When I can book enough workshops, I’ll step away from teaching and live the life I keep imaging”. But life had a habit of getting in the way, eating up extra money, and keeping me stuck in a job I dreaded. How could I step away from this misery and into the life I dreamt about? I needed a plan and I needed to shift my momentum.

So, a year ago, I came up with a plan. I’d give myself another year and a half to shift the momentum and find an exist strategy. I’d put in other year and half of teaching, for a total of 20 years, and I’d step away. I just couldn’t see teaching another eleven or twelve years before I was eligible to retire, and I needed to shift things. If things continued the way they had been going, I’d never be able to step away. So, I thought long and hard. I journaled and I brainstormed. I had to figure out what I wanted and how to make that happen. The simple fact is that I need to make money to meet my obligations. But how to do that as an artist, writer, and workshop leader?

I finally figured that if I could get something steady going - something that was in some way reliable. Selling art, teaching workshops here and there just isn’t all that reliable unless you can sell a bunch of your art and sell out the classes you teach. I needed something else. Something that I could do while I continued as a teacher. I hit upon the idea of offering online workshops. Dave and I had done some small things - webinars for a variety of organizations, video tutorials and workshop type stuff for some other folks. We put together PowerPoints and videos, and I kept thinking, “Hey, we could do something like that for ourselves.” That was it. If I could offer a series of online workshops, that might be somewhat reliable. So I gave myself a year - a year to cobble together an online workshop. I decided that this needed to be part of my bigger scheme to shift momentum and step away from teaching.

Over the last twelve months, I’ve slowly worked on a workshop here and there when I’ve had time. I had to figure out a whole lot along the way because I really had no idea what I was doing - I still have no idea. I don’t know how it compares to others, but I really don’t care. I’m doing my thing the best I know how, and I know there are people who will like it, love it, and share it. I’m putting it out into the world - tomorrow actually. We’ll see how it resonates with others.

But this isn’t about the workshop. This is about what has happened in the mean time as I have shifted my focus. The thing is that through a lot of little things - tiny steps, I have seen things slowly change for me and the Journals Fodder Junkies. We’ve attracted nearly 400 new followers to the JFJ Facebook page. We’ve been booked to do more workshops - especially Art and Soul in Portland, Oregon and Virginia Beach, VA. I’ve posted more on the blog, on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Instagram. I’ve made the JFJ a bigger presence in the world of social media, and I’ve made a lot of artwork. But those are just statistical successes - outward appearance type things. 

The biggest surprise has been the change within myself over the last year. I realize that I have become more present lately. I have become more focused on the Now - the moment that is happening right here and right now. I realize now that a lot of the misery that I felt was because I was so focused on how things hadn’t worked out in the past, and how I wanted to be somewhere else entirely. I was caught resenting the past, and worrying about the future. I had no energy to focus on the Now. I was creating the misery and the suffering by not being in the present moment. But that has shifted. I have become much more aware of the here and now.

I still have a goal for the future, but I’m focusing on the practical and tangible steps that I need to do right here and right now. As long as I focus on that, as long as I realize that I can only be where I am, then things seem to go more smoothly and I am much more at peace. Actually, I have discovered just how happy I am. The misery that I felt over the last few years has faded. This has actually been one of my best, if not the best year that I’ve ever had as a teacher. There are still plenty of frustrating things that happen and are happening in the teaching profession, but as long as I stay present, and not let the complaining and moaning overtake me, I am much more satisfied. I am no longer waiting for the day when I can do what I want. I am doing it right now. I am creating the life that I have been dreaming about for so long. I’m still teaching. That’s something I need to do still to make the bills, but I have a plan. The momentum is shifting, and I am finding joy and happiness by staying present. I need to remember that the journey is the destination, and I have to be where I am and not resent where I have been and worry about where I will be.

Here. Now. That’s all there is. I am finding ways to share, to connect, to have purpose right here right now.


Here’s to the continued shift in momentum and to staying present.