The new year. Just got back from our cabin in Alta Sierra – seven days with from three to six grandkids at all times. Here are four of them:
I’ll have a post coming about that soon. We had a great time in the snow (snowmen, snowboards and tubing at Shirley Meadows).
and some wonderful walks by the North Fork of the Kern River.
Now I’m trying to get my brain back in focus! Because I have to sit at an actual desk on an actual straight-up chair to do this (until the Macbook is repaired or replaced) I’m slightly discombobulated. It doesn’t feel creative here; it feels workmanlike. Which, come to think of it, creativity could benefit from. It evokes that dreaded word discipline.
I’m going to do the Creative Every Day challenge that Leah Kolidas offers on her blog. Now, I’m not going to do an entry every day. For a year? I’d wear myself out as well as my readers. But I’ll dip into the challenge at least twice a month.
What’s good about this is the nudge – Leah has a theme for each month, and a nudge here and there to get moving and producing is helpful and fun. So here is what I did in my journal the other day. Actually, I did it at the cabin. I had no notion of meeting the January theme of Body but looking at it, I see it does.
The images are from a National Geographic story on Stonehenge. Most of the time when I work, I don’t really know what I’m doing. For art journal entries, I do a watercolor background of some sort, and then images just arrange themselves on the page. For this one, I knew I wanted to start with geometric images. Unnoticed by me at the time, the predominant stone, rock, whatever it’s called in the foreground, looks like a person with his/her back turned. This gives a whole other dimension to the collage. My mind flies to all the things this could represent about women (I think of it as a woman), strength, resignation, resilience, power, and more.
The only geometrics that remained exposed after I collaged are the lines that form a V, or a triangle at the top. They are cradling Stonehenge, which releases another stream of thought now that I’m thinking of the stone as a body. I like what resulted so much that I may do a large version.
As to explaining how the art happens, I came across a wonderful quote that whollyjeanne posted a link to on twitter. Here’s the quote and it explains the artistic process as well as anything does. I suppose this is how the collage happened.
“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time; this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.” ~ Martha Graham
If you want to see other photos or photo collages for that matter, take a look at my web page.
