Cross the Line...

Wednesday 18th April 2012

I have been much too long coming back to complete the Book of the Night.  I started the Extreme Journalling course last September.  But, I promised myself I would try to complete the course before my brother's first anniversary, which is on 25th April.

I read an interesting blog post on Kelly Kilmer's blog recently.  She was saying how important it is to have the courage to actually put yourself, your thoughts, your feelings and emotions into your Art Journal posts " you are the only one on this planet capable of expressing your view of the world as seen and experienced through your eyes and once that perspective is gone, well...".

I have been thinking recently about how I will continue my Art Journalling when Book of the Night comes to an end.  After all, I have come to really love doing this.  I love writing on the pages that I have worked with images.  I love working with the colour.  And I need to take it to the next level...  I want to decide how to work my own art journalled pages.  Should I set myself questions.  Just let it come...  Or would it be better to take a theme to work through?

So do I need to worry about what I put into my art journal pages?  Into my journal pages?  Do I need to worry that someone will one day read these pages?  I don't know.  After all, I would be gone.  I was watching a CSI Miami repeat the other day and towards the end of the episode, the character Horatio Caine said something that has stayed in my mind "we never know when death is coming and that is why we should not live in fear of it."  Isn't this so true.  No one knows what is in the future, but we all know that one day death will come, and it is better not to know when...

I wish I could remember where I came across this image...  there is a .com on the bottom but I cannot read it properly...  

I love the idea of my journal pages telling a story...  and I think this is an element I shall try to work on while I continue my art journal.

These pages were answering the question:  It's a Thin Line... How did your mother walk between the lines?

But when I really thought about this and did some freewriting, I realised that it wasn't walking between the lines that my mother excelled at, but having the courage to cross the line...  that was really important.

Revisiting Book of the Night

9 February 2012

In September 2011 I started Book of the Night, the extreme art journalling course run by Juliana Coles...

At the time I started I was in a dark place where I was trying to find meaning in my life after the sudden death of my brother when he accidentally drowned.  

Before the course really started Juliana suggested that I work through some of my thoughts surrounding death and loss on my own, so that I had started to look at the feelings that I had buried inside...

I found this an difficult thing to do...  but ultimately very enlightening and inspirational...

Having worked steadily on my book of the night, which had now become two books of the night, I stopped in mid December to go to England to spend time with my family...  with of course the intention to start straight back into my art journalling on my return home in January...  

Towards the end of January, I began looking through the pages that I had worked on and a couple of them really mean something to me...  often in different ways to my initial thoughts regarding them while going through the process...  The Light Up My Life page as I call it in my mind was worked during the "Descent"...  On spending time looking at these images I have been inspired to walk more frequently, not having a dog anymore has lead me to horribly lazy ways... and to improve my diet...  Which is something I am going to use this blog to develop further...

The "Chinese Tomb Sweeping" exercise brought home to me, as has rereading some of my old journals, that I have had a long time need to write...  to express my thoughts and to develop my stories...   it also brought me to realise that my current website didn't allow me to do this...  that the time needed to plan, design, create, make, photograph, and hopefully sell, the finished pieces took very long hours and I had buried my head in the sand, regarding how much I might actually earn per hour...  

I also realised that I need to have my independence with my own earnings so I decided to embark on a new web venture...  I have pulled together enough funds (some of which will arrive gradually with the sale of part of my beautiful doll collection - which has been very difficult to do), but the new website is almost designed, the banner has been worked out, the domaine name has been bought and I have contacted yarn suppliers...  now I have spent much of the last couple of weeks working out detailed lists for what I want to order now, and what I want to order when the money from doll sales gradually begins to come in...

I have also spent many hours knitting and developing interesting blog posts for my Colour Choices blog so that I can develop it into an interesting knitting blog...  

So for me, January 2012 has been a very positive month, where I have made difficult decisions and I have also begun moving forward in positive ways towards my Quest for Adventure...

I also find, that I am now feeling ready to complete Chapter 5 and begin Chapter 6...