The Journal

Although I started my art journal last week, I have made only four entries in it. I suppose because I write my Morning Pages every day, I assumed I might do more than three or four entries a week. But who knows? I didn't write everyday although I have written several times a week in my pages for over seventeen years. Perhaps I will develop my own way to do my art journaling.

I don't really feel disappointed, but I do wonder just what all I will make of art journaling. I am struck at how much easier it is for me to write a sentence than to draw a picture. At this point, with four entries made, I find that what I write does two things: it interprets something about the print I have mounted on the page and it tells stories related to the petroglyph I have made the block print from. For example, I have mentioned an artist I drew with in the valley where I first saw these petroglyphs. I have also mentioned my grandson who saw some of these when he was young and asked me a question about one of the figures I had posted on Facebook. 

The first time I heard about keeping an art journal, the friend who told me had spent weeks making mandalas on a daily basis. She explored her thoughts and feelings through the designs and drawings, through colors and shapes, through abstracts that sought to explore things she barely had words to express. I was impressed and recalled a workshop I attended in which I too made mandalas. Of course, these were assignments for the express purpose of the workshop and did not become a regular practice. Perhaps I will add some mandalas to my art journal. So far I have not.

The second time I discussed an art journal with an artist, I was encouraged to draw, draw, draw. It reminded me of Julia Cameron's write, write, write approach to Morning Pages in her Artists Way book. I draw but not incessantly like my son did in his high school years. I doodle but don't feel prone to do so every day. So I'm wondering, now that I have begun my first art journal, what am I going to do?

What I actually did was to mount two more prints and mess around on the pages! The second one with the big bear became a confetti celebration and a few words. The third one with a deer became an explanation of the petroglyph type, its location, some archaeological information I recalled from reading about it, and my feelings from first seeing it on a huge boulder near my in-laws' farm. 

I'm not quite sure what I think about what I am doing, but I'm sure happy to be doing it. I wonder what I will learn. What new ways will I learn to relate to art? What new ways will I learn to express my feelings? I feel hopeful and mildly excited and mostly feel like I'm on the verge of learning something mighty nice about art and myself.

Denver, 2015