I can't recall a year that I was so excited to begin. 2014 was pretty close, but in all of my 47 years, 2015 has the rumblings of being one of my most significant and exciting career wise. For that, I am already grateful.
I took the last few weeks off to spend time with family and be present in the moment of the Christmas season, but as the year came to an end, the excitement of what this year will hold began to get the better of me and I couldn't wait to kick it off by getting my fingers in some paint and writing.
My altered book that I have worked on over the past year is close to fruition and as I perused the pages that were left, I immediately connected with the image of the two men showcased in "The Hidden Fortress" recollective. They were escorting the princess and her general across enemy lines, although they didn't know that, and the lack of knowing and attachment to greed struck a chord.
As I looked over the pages I first began to understand that I have a common bond with them, and I think we all do. No one is perfect, I tend to let ambition, and what could be, get the best of me so as I began marking through the pages using Asemic writing, I felt the concept of truth bubble up towards the surface. This brought me back to a time when I wasn't sure what the truth was, I struggled with it, I doubted it, I ran from it, I camouflaged it.
Not anymore though. This time, in these days, I know like I am breathing what my truth is. Two figures are at play on this page, one that speaks the truth and one that doesn't. Because of my faith and daily practice, I understand the difference between the two....smallness vs. bigness, hopelessness vs. belief, fear vs. courage. In our humanness we wane between the two but ultimately, if we walk upon a foundation of trust, we begin to identify the subtle differences between these two voices.
Art journaling is where the magic happens for artists who use them. They can be our playgrounds, our best friends, our hidden fortresses of fears and thoughts and ideas that are meant for no one else but ourselves. They can also be the impetus for amazing paintings and influences for larger work, which for me, is the light to my path these days.
2015 gives me another slate, another set of 365 days to walk the earth sharing love and light and all things Ardithian. Today, my prayers are full of gratitude that you all have walked with me this far and I look forward to the days, weeks, and months ahead. Here is the finished page:
I speak my truth boldly this year.....with confidence, with grace, and with a love for others. For things to come I will be eagerly launching new offerings this year to work with artists looking to go from amateur to professional. There are plans in the works for a studio and I am also opening the doors to take my practice on the road....which makes the hair on my head stand up with a hell yeah!
If you are a creative, or an artist, or one who simply loves to foster those two things in others, join me in this walk to paint the world more beautifully one heart at a time.
TO VIEW THE ENTIRE BOOK OF PAGES GO HERE
and HERE ON FB
Throughout this book "Perspectives on the Arts" 1961, I have enjoyed immensely getting to delve into the perceptions and points of view of the art establishment during this decade. Proust was showcased for his writings, and this morning, as I landed on the page which I would alter, I read this:
"For Marcel Proust, communication was of the very essence of art. Among the multitudinous solitudes that populate the great Thebaid of A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, art is the only means by which any man can enter the soul of another man. Only by art can we get outside ourselves, know what another sees of his universe, which is not the same as ours, and the different view of which would otherwise have remained as unknown to us as those there may be on the moon. Thanks to art, instead of seeing only one world, our own, we see it under multiple forms, and as many as there are original artists, just so may worlds have we at our disposal, differing more widely from one another than those that roll through infinite space, and years after the glowing center from which they emanated has been extinguished, be it called Rembrandt or Vermeer, they continue to send us their own rays of light."
The worlds spilled right off the page and hit me directly in the gut as powerful and moving and so very true. I sat for the longest looking at this page spread and when I looked up, I saw one of my dolls, Found Friend, who always seem to be desperately trying to make a point. The direction for the page was found and I began sketching.
Throughout the process I kept hearing the message of how important it is for each of us to understand our value, especially in light of being created as creative beings, and with each stroke I sent forward to the hope that everything I create and share will send forth the message which is just that....we matter, our creativity matters, and the world needs us to own that.
When I create these pages, I alway seek to stay open to the message my heart wants me to process. I paint and write and draw with the tools in front of me, and with the addition of each one, a layer is added to that knowing and in turn gives me more creative passion to hear my own, unique voice. Young artists struggle with this I think, finding their voice, finding their style. I can only share what has worked for me:
Stay curious.
Look for the wonder in the world.
Make records of it.
Seek out that which you find fascinating.
Study that.
Practice every single day.
Trust your path.
Express your wonder through the skill set you have in the moment, the heart will follow.
I hope, for today, those of you who are aware of how very important you and your creativity are in the world will know that in a more powerful way and begin to share that message with others. With all of the hate we find in this world, our love and creativity holds the power to change that. I do believe this with every thing I am.
Ever since I was a child I have had violent dreams. Some, due to life experiences, but I tend to think that the imagination which I reign in during my waking hours goes rampant when I fall asleep. My dreams are in vivid colors, many I remember in graphic details, some I wish I didn't, but all in all, they affect my mood the next morning and at times it is a struggle to shake their influence or impact.
This journal page tinkers with the idea of dreams, their oddities, their undermeanings, their very nature I think. Dream angels tend to show up quite often and I have come to know them as a protecting force in many of my dreams. Working through dream issues artistically gives me a safe medium to delve into areas I might need to swim in for a bit, discuss with my therapist, or draw inspiration from during the next painting.
This page started out as an advertisers page in the back of my art book, so I chose to highlight some areas and cover the rest. Chagall's 'Fleurs' were interesting, though vague because of the black and white printing, so I enhanced them with acrylic skins. I also found humor in the ladybug head on the priest's body, then decided to sketch in an angel in the background.
Besides considering dreams, I wanted to test out my new Neon paint pens, and they were quite dreamy themselves. This journal is turning out quite nicely and I am totally letting my looseness flow rather than attempting to be controlling and tight with my pages. I also don't want my style to appear 'formatted or fixed,' so the chaos of each page is actually intentional, much like my mixed media paintings.
Hope you might consider altering your own book, if you do, please share some pages with me! You can see my entire journal with its progress pages on my Facebook Page Here.
Another page in my Field Notes dual sketchbook. You can view the previous pages HERE.
This page was quite interesting to me, especially today when its message seemed to appear out of no where yet resonate so deeply. What first captured me was the image of the girl, and her look of being lost. The artist may not have intended to relate her in that way, but that is how I connected with her. As I began these two pages, I simply wanted to practice sketching the human face or figure in unique stations of life, just like this female, so I began sketch. I also began to read a book on China that I was given and gained much of my inspiration from the images I viewed in that book, beautiful, haunting, and so telling.
I was also taken by a memory of my family, who are professional clowns, and what importance the concept of putting on a mask does for folks. As I sketched, I also sketched what was around me, my car, the trees in the distance, and the barb wire fence. Over the course of several days, as I continued to layer, I still had no clear message about the meaning of the pages other than a practice, an observation, a record of my viewing a book and choosing to play with my paints and markers.
When I got the book out again I noticed a pattern.....every image resonated with the concept of freedom, or the lack thereof. From the car, the barb wired, the bird, to the images of people in places, each had a significant relation to our freedom, either of choice or having our choices taken from us.
I plan to sit with these pages a while and really absorb the process, not only of how I made them, but what I am to learn from them. I live in a country where freedom is taken for granted so easily, and do realize, just how incredibly blessed I am to live here, and not in a place where my body, mind, or spirit is in bondage. Art journals can give us incredible insight into the life lessons we are meant to learn, today I am most grateful for the freedom of free expression and the freedom to share what I create with a greater audience. So many will never have this.
There are days and then there are days. For the record I live a tremendously blessed life with gobs of gratitude and a heart for others. With that said, today was one of those days where I just wanted to throw eggs at the "ignorant establishment" (fill in the phrase as you wish, :)
Without boring you with the details of the idiocy of the mail that was opened, the phone call that was placed, the arguing that ensued, and the total lack of comprehension by someone, let's just say I am frustrated....beyond frustrated, ready to throw rotten eggs....at many targets. Instead, since I am not prone to actual egg throwing, I grabbed my new art journal, a 1962 book called, "Perspectives On The Arts" and took out my frustration on two pages. Then it hit me.
(I added the collage elements of the eyeball and the skeletal arm)
No matter what happens in my station in life, be it losing every monetary thing I have to an organization or government that wishes to tax or bill the crap out of me, they cannot take my creativity from me. They cannot take the God given ability I posses to look at a blade of grass and see a universe, a raindrop and see within myself, or at a whisper and hear a symphony. That realization was profound today, it helped lift my spirits, it helped change my point of view, and I am sure it helped lower my blood pressure.
There are so many things each of us must deal with in life, many unpleasant, but the more I connect with the creative placed within my spirit, the more I realize the world will not end and pigs won't fly. Art journaling, the act of altering a book be it blank or printed, with words, marks, images, and paint, alters the soul. It makes me wish it was mandatory for every student in every grade through college to keep an art journal of some sort. The world might be a much more palatable place on days like today if so.
This page was made with acrylic fluids, heavy body, inks, oil pastels, markers, and graphite. The words on the left, which I simply wrote as a train of consciousness, reads as follows:
I am torn today by the need, the MUST, to create from my very core. The world bombards us with what must be paid, be surrendered, be handed back without the notion of what impact this has on those doing the giving. Takers, they can suck the life out of the ordinary, but Creatives....they fight back with the power of the pen, the brush, the dance, the random thought that turns a whisper into a symphony within the creative being which cannot, which WILL not be contained. The act of creating is fundamental to sanity, for they cannot take that from us, for a whisper, a thought, a prayer, an idea transforms the soul.
