Delicious Spring

I love journaling.
Often I think the act of keeping a journal helps me look out for things worthy of journaling about.
Blogging is no different.
Increasingly though, I find that this often takes a non-written form. I look for color or light that's just so. And that's somehow what I feel like recording.
 And so sometimes my camera is my journal.
And so I share some snippets here on my blog of moments I've spent recently, relishing spring.
This is my nephew, Richard.
I'll catch up with posting some drawings or process pieces for recent illustrations and current illustrations I'm working on soon.
 
But, as hopefully most out there know, sometimes life is too rich to spend too much time plugged in or online.
But it is nice to stop in now and then and share/record the richness.
:) 


She's Nurturing A Dream

I made this collage using some of the paper-cutting techniques I've been experimenting with since attending the Nikki McClure workshop a few weeks ago.
She's Nurturing a Dream
I made it as a celebration as well. Big news: I'm expecting another baby! I'm due in July. If you look closely at the picture of me in the last post (the one at the end where I'm standing next to Nikki and holding up the picture I've made) you'll (maybe) see my blossoming bump.

I've had it in my mind for awhile to start making collages that are a bit more journal-like. Or a bit more like my own journals, which are full of torn bits and discarded (and then reclaimed) evidence of regular life.

I should note that this is just a lousy snapshot picture of the collage. I still need to scan the image for best quality. But I wanted to share now.

More in the works! Fun stuff!

Superhero Photo class, and pictures in Cambodia

From an assignment in Andrea's Superhero Photo Class.




One of my favorite bloggers, Andrea Scher, recently decided to offer a playful online photo course.

I couldn't resist.






It just sounded so fun. And so low-key. And there was no concrete reason to take it other than fun.

 I have this habit of taking a crazy amount of pictures. I look for color, shape, light. But it's all just playful.

Sort of an extension of my excessive journaling habit I guess.

Red-shirted girl in the distance


Anyway, the class exceeded my expectations.  It was fun. Super fun. Superhero fun! 
 There were no goals to make serious art, just an opportunity to play and share (and do photo treasure hunts!) with other like-minded playful (mostly) amateur photographers.
My mother and my son holding hands

The class also happened to overlap with my family's trip to Cambodia last week.

For once on a trip, I wasn't feeling guilty about how many stupid pictures I was taking, and worrying over looking like some sort of camera-happy Hawaiian-shirted stereo-type of an American abroad.


Instead I embraced my practice as a way of appreciating the moment. I was no more obtrusive with my pictures than I've ever been (Let's just say the overly shy girl isn't one to walk around with a camera dangling from her neck, She leaves that to the real pros, like my uncle, or to the bolder amateurs, or to the tourists riding big buses).

Anyway, If anyone out there likes to take pictures, especially in a playful way, I highly recommend Andrea's course.

One of the surprising highlights for me was the group flickr pool, where we shared photos and commented on each others pieces. It was so fun to participate in the exchange!
Plus it hardly took anytime. Maybe 10 minutes any day I felt like checking in. Yet I still gained a lot. 

Andrea will be offering another class soon, I believe. I hope, if you like to play with pictures, you'll join her.
And um... Cambodia?
Blue umbrellas at Angkor Wat
Ya, well, WOW!
Trees draping over mossy textured ruins,

 bicycles, bicycles, bicycles,




 
And some of the most amazing sites in the world.

Some dreams fall in your lap like an apple dropping from a tree. Other dreams you yank and yank and yank at the door, but it just won't open. Both have their place in my life. And I'm happy to say that while I keep yanking at the door of my biggest dream (and dang that door can frustrate me), I'm at least eating my apples. 

To Bali and Back

I've been in Bali with the family the last couple of weeks.
 
Is this my life?
 
Yes, I suppose so.
 My favorite part was meeting artists and seeing the places where they work. 
 Bali has some of the most amazing handicrafts in the whole world, which is one of the reasons I wanted to go there. 
 And I wasn't disappointed.
I especially loved the Ikat weaving,
 
the shadow puppet studios, 
the carving that was everywhere, 
 and seeing children learning to draw.
 I also loved this place called Threads of Life which is an organization that promotes preserving traditional weaving traditions throughout Indonesia.
 Overall the trip inspired me. 
I was inspired by the way the people expressed their spirituality,
by the scenery,
 by the colors,
and perhaps most of all by the way it seemed everyone on the island was an artist (I'm not exaggerating that point).
 Sometimes I'm frustrated living in Southeast Asia; I feel like there's more obstacles than usual to my work and I'm also so far away from the community I love.
 But, as I've said before, I'm also so, so, deeply grateful for this experience and adventure into the new and unknown.
And I'm not sure why, but it's also making me want to break away from some of my shyness and share my own art with the world better.
I hope I can find a way to do so.

P.S. two of the above pictures (the crazy painted wall and the creative boat) are actually from a small island called Gili Trawangan, off the coast of Lombok -- the next island to the east from Bali in Indonesia, where we also spent a couple of days relaxing on the beach. There were no cars on the island -- only horse-drawn carriages and bikes. How cool is that?

SUMMER FRIDAY TRAVEL JOURNAL SERIES: In Crayon

THANKS to all moms everywhere who save kid-art.
When I was about 14 I decided the few travel journals I had kept when younger were "so embarrassing." I tossed them.
Or so I thought.
It was like Christmas when my mom drug these out of a box for me a couple years ago.
The drawings pictured here are from one of the first road trips I ever took. While I sat in the back seat of the car, I drew stuff I saw along the way.
One of my favorite pages isn't pictured here. It's of a traffic jam. I was from a really small town. A traffic jam seemed exotic to me at the time.

The other journal my mom saved was a gift from beloved teacher. She gave me the journal below right before I left for a month long road-trip my extended family took in Europe when I was 10 years old. We met relatives in Sweden. We went to the original LEGOLAND in Denmark. And most memorable of all: My Grandfather revisited places he fought in WWII, including the beaches of Normandy, where he landed on D-day. He told us stories. Old people hugged him in the streets and gave us free hot dogs. Wow.
It's funny. I wrote about things like the quality of the water in the showers instead of Grandpa's stories (although I did write quite a bit about Legoland). I guess that's why I tossed the thing when I was 14. I felt I hadn't written about any of the real stuff.

But I'm so happy now to re-read what the showers were like on that trip.
I'm happy to see my old hand-writing and remember the trip through the lines.
Thanks Mom, for saving me from my own inner critic!

Hopefully I can do the same for Oscar.

P.S. Okay ya, you are right. It is Saturday, not Friday. I'm a day late. And sad, but true -- the summer is winding down it is just about time to bid farewell to my Summer series and cook up something new for the fall. How about 2 more weeks of travel journals though? After all, summer isn't quite over yet...


SUMMER FRIDAY TRAVEL JOURNAL SERIES: Notetaking in Museums and Art Pilgrimages

Have you ever taken a pilgrimage for art? How did you document your trip, if you did at all?

In 1999, fresh from graduating from college, I was lucky enough to go to Europe to spend 3 months looking at art (I spent all my frequent flier miles to get there -- I had a lot, I was an out-of-state student, plus I also think I used some of my mom's miles, thanks mom!).
I spent on average about 8-10 hours a day in museums (honestly), planning my day around what museums opened earliest and which ones closed latest. I often didn't stop for eating (not a good idea -- unless you want to loose a lot of weight fast, which I did; my sister wanted to know if I had an eating disorder when I got home).And everywhere I went I bought postcards. While I was at the museums and galleries, I took copious notes that I transferred onto the backs of the postcards at night. I thought I'd have a little booklet of postcards by the end of the trip. HA! I had 4 enormous binders full (I ditched lots of stuff from my pack as I went along, to make room for my journals, by the end of the trip I was REALLY sick of my 2 shirts).
Anyway, it was a dream trip. I spent days in places like the Prado, the Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, and countless others. I spent entire hours in front of single paintings (like Guernica).By taking notes, I forced myself to slow down and really look at all sorts of things, color, texture, composition. The notes were silly (and are tedious to look back at), but the act of taking them helped train my eye to look. After all, I had to look for something to write about.I also made a point to never spend longer reading or writing than I spent looking. Looking took precedence. And making a point to spend more time looking also trained me to look. By the end of the trip I took hardly any notes at all. It was like meditation. I would just loose that side of my brain and be a part of the colors and vistas before me.
Because I only had three months, I edited lots of locations from my initial itinerary. I wanted to enjoy the places I did go, and look at ALL the art I wanted to see in each of those places.

My biggest regret from the trip (save for missing things that were closed for renovation -- it seemed that many places were closed for renovation in 1999 -- prep work for 2000?) was that I skipped out on a few amazing art towns in Spain.
Like Toledo, and Bilbao.
While I planned the trip I took to Spain this past February, I swore I would make up for lost time.
It didn't end up working for us to go to Bilbao, But I made my Grandma skip Madrid so we could spend time in Toledo.
Unfortunately when we got to Toledo, quite a few places were closed for renovation (go figure!) but what was open turned out to be the perfect amount to see in the amount of time we had there anyway.
This time I didn't take notes while I looked at the art at all. I just soaked it all in.

P.S. Interesting side note to this post: I took something home other than 4 enormous binders of art postcards from my trip in 1999. I fell in love on that trip. No kidding. My husband and I met in Rome and then again in Venice. And then again in Paris... And then again in Seattle. Bryce was touring around checking out the spring classic bike races (his biggest passion is bike racing). Our first kiss was in front of Claes Oldenburg's Buried Bicycle sculpture in Paris:

SUMMER FRIDAY TRAVEL JOURNAL SERIES: Another Tool For The Journaling Tool Belt

CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK...

Last week I shared about my magical day in Morocco, a strange and wonderful interlude from my trip to Spain. I also shared the ugly collages from my journal that I made from that amazing day. I expressed my disappointment and also my cherished rule of letting go.

So like I said last week, I let it go. Or so I thought.

When I got home, I made a few different sorts of collages. I couldn't help myself. I'm crazy crafty Kjersten and sometimes I have a hard time letting go of fun crafty projects. Especially when they relate to my travel journals. (It doesn't matter if I have tons of other stuff to do. Don't visit my house. It's always a mess).

So partially out of my frustration with my Tangier collages and partly due to the fact that when I added my photos to those of my camera-happy sister I had about a million photos, I decided to make a second journal altogether. I actually do this with travel journals quite a lot, I'm a bit ashamed to say.
Anyway, I made a blurb book of our entire trip as a gift for my Grandmother. Blurb books look like traditional coffee table books, but they're your own. Blurb makes the sort of self-published books that self-publishing is good for: family albums, family histories, family recipe books etc. They print on demand and their prices are awesome. Here's the Tangier pages from my blurb book:
I felt like I was cheating on myself at first to make a photo album from my trip that wasn't handmade, ordered off the internet no less. Gasp! But I had read about blurb books from a few other blogs and decided to give it a try for the photos from my trip. What I learned: They are just one other way of making a "hand-crafted" book. One more tool for the tool-belt.

Why limit myself? I have a personal pet-peeve against using the exact same kind of album or journal for every thing you ever need an album or journal for (sorry, I know for a fact that I have a lot of beloved artist and writer friends who are stuck in their journal selection and like it that way. But I have a hard time accepting this. It makes me more playful to use different sorts of journals all the time. I'm a bit evangelical about it. I don't like the idea of getting stuck in a rut. I dare you to buy a wacky and weird different kind of journal next time you fill yours up and go to replace it with that same boring old same-old you've been using for years. I've heard all your arguments for sticking with the same kind. I still disagree. But I digress).

I love my blurb book and if you have a gazillion pictures from a trip you should buy an album from me, another crafty artist and/or etsy. But if you're looking for something you can make a small print run of (say if you want to give a travel album to everyone you traveled with and you don't want to physcially make the book that many times), I highly recommend Blurb books.

Here's my two journals from Spain displayed on my wall using plate holders (why not?). The blurb book is on the top, the Collage Journal is on the bottom and underneath is a photo of my Great Grandmother cuddling my Grandmother who was then a baby.
I've often found that I end up having two books after a trip, one for photos and one for writing/art. They feel like a team. Here's my blurb book next to my handmade journal:
Thanks Grandma Muriel! For inspiring our trip with your dream. And also for passing on that travel bug you've always had.


Oh ya. P.S.
My house is cluttered with a few different collections: handmade books, puppets, pottery and weaving. Forgive me for being a tourist; I bought a weaving in Tangier:
Isn't it beautiful?

NEXT WEEK: PLANS VS. SURPRISES; IN TRAVEL AND IN TRAVEL JOURNALS

SUMMER FRIDAY TRAVEL JOURNAL SERIES: Sometimes my favorite "rule" in journaling is that it's okay to let something go

My Grandmother had always dreamed of going to Morocco. It was a request of our trip to Spain. "Can we go to Morocco, too?"
I wanted to take her there with all my heart. But I knew the kind of travel I most enjoyed would probably not be comfortable for her in Morocco (she is in her mid-eighties!) no matter how adventurous she is.
So I spent many a long night after my son had gone to bed researching just the right way we could take her on a day trip to Morocco without it being cheesy and without it being uncomfortable.
I found a woman in Spain who owns a guesthouse near the ferry to Africa who lives and breaths all things Morocco. We stayed at her guesthouse, a magical and tranquil place called Dar Cilla, which is decorated peacefully and perfectly with Moroccan handicrafts and antiques. Even if we weren't going to spend the night in Morocco, I wanted Grandma to relish the flavor of the place.
The people at Dar Cilla arranged for a private tour for only my family. It was a beautiful and perfect day. I never imagined a day-trip tour could be so fulfilling. Our guide listened to things we cared about and walked us (or drove us) to see such things. That's how we ended up in an apothecary shop learning about spices (my husband loves to cook) and in a communal bread baking oven underground. It's also how we saw many of the sites Matisse had painted when he lived in Tangier (There are unassuming diamond shaped cobbles in the roads wherever Matisse painted). These colorful string bits are tied all around posts and doorknobs in the section of the market where thread spinners work:
We weren't pressured by any heavy duty salesmen but we didn't have to worry about the stresses of transportation and we had a guide who taught us lots of fun and interesting things. We also ate one of the best meals I've ever eaten in my life with some crazy brewed fruity juice concoction. I felt like the day was a trip on a magic carpet ride back in time to the days when silent movie stars and Parisian artists came to Tangier for the color, life and magic of the place. My Grandma beamed all day. I was thrilled that I made her dream come true.

And here's where I sigh and bring us back to journaling. My journal pages from this magical day are anything but. How frustrating.They are boring. And un-colorful. In a sense, I let them go before I even started making them. I was too busy taking in all the color and life and magic to collage about it later that day. But even though it's frustrating, it's also okay. Sometimes my favorite "rule" in journaling is to just let something go. So I didn't do it justice. Move on. At least I had that magic ride.

If I beat myself up about every time I didn't do some experience justice in my journal (travel or otherwise), it would mean I wasn't having enough magical experiences (I'd rather be having them than recording about them).

So consider this a permission slip from a journal junkie. If you are ever journaling (or blogging) and you really really wanted to capture it all, but you also really really wanted to do something else, do something else -- especially if that something is magical. Journals suck when they become dreaded obligations.

All that being said, I did bother to make some different sort of collages from my Tangier magic carpet ride when I got home. But that's another post.

TO BE CONTINUED... NEXT FRIDAY

A Recent Blue and Dreamy Afternoon

Recently I was feeling blue for no really good reason. My son fell asleep in the car on the way home from something so I was stuck in the car. But luckily I had my journal and my sketchbook (I’ve been taking them with me if I go in the car near nap time – just in case).

I drove about 2 miles from my house to a spot that overlooks Bellingham Bay. I got out my journal thinking I’d brainstorm ways to get out of my funky mood. Instead, as I opened my journal, I was inspired to daydream.

I asked myself what I would like my life to look like a few years from now, and to dream BIG. This is nothing really new. I dream all the time. And I do dream big. But I wrote out the 5-years-from-now vision in present tense, as if it were now.

About two pages in, I stopped myself. I smirked. I realized, while all this was very cool and sounded wonderful, first off, it was not too far off from where I’m at now. I mean, if I were to ask what that version of 5-years-from-now could look like 5 years earlier, it’s my life now. I’m just a 5-year-earlier version of that supposed big dream. That was a pretty awesome and funny moment for me.

Even more awesome though: I stopped myself because I was describing my relationship with my son 5 years from now. I realized I didn’t even want or need to go there. What I realized was that I want and need to focus on now. I want to enjoy his sweet little 2-year-old self while it lasts and not worry too terribly much about his 7-year-old self lest life passes us both by.

And really, despite the fact that I think dreams are essential, I know that also, I really want and need to focus on now in all the other aspects of my life too. I think I was blue because subconsciously I had slipped out of the moment that afternoon. I looked out over the bay, then over my shoulder at my sleeping son in the back seat and slipped right back into the moment.

I’ve been working at becoming an illustrator for an embarrassing amount of time. And it’s fun. I’m so thrilled that I have the chance. Thank you Universe for my life as it is now. It’s a dream come true.

SUMMER FRIDAY SERIES: Travel Journals and The Stories they Tell

Every story is, in some way, a journey. And every journal is, in some way, a story. But unlike more polished stories, journals don't always have beginnings, middles and ends. They are messier. More organic. More like a big pile of seeds that haven't been planted. Or else like a big pile of weeds that have (or haven't) been pulled.

But travel journals are a bit more linear, no? They (at least kind-of) have a beginning, middle and an end. And like characters grow in stories, travel often changes people. You don't return home the same person you were when you left. You grow.

(At least so with journey kinds of travel. Maybe not so with lazy vacation travel -- don't get me wrong, lazy vacations are good -- just not usually adventurous).

Maybe due to my Adventure-ess spirit I can't help but often favor travel journals amongst all the different kinds of journals I have kept. I love the unknowns, the risks, the challenges, and the fun discoveries. I love creative play, discovery, and most of all, engaging in wonder. So, duh, I love travel journals.

So anyway, all this is to say that for the rest of the summer (through labor day), every Friday, I'm going to put up a blog post about travel journals. I'll be mining lots of pictures from my personal stash, but I'd love for anyone to send me pictures or links to post of your own if you have them. I think it will be a fun way to keep some focus to my blogging and a way to enliven an old regular feature (journal of the week) that I suspended recently.

And to start? Let's finish up with those collages from Spain...

For those newer to my blog, I went to Spain in February and shortly thereafter started posting pictures of the collages from my travel journal alongside pictures of the stuff that inspired me to make the collages.

Well I left off about half-way through my trip, right before I visited Bodega Tradicion, a sherry bodega with an owner who has a passion for art collecting.

The tiles behind my Grandma were painted by Picasso:

There's an intimacy to small, semi-private, art collections that's often lost at big museums. The owners of Bodega Tradicion display their art in a beautiful long private gallery. They have pieces by Velazquez, Goya and Zurbaran.
And they have delicious artisan sherry. Cheers!

My Journal is a Playground

I just filled up my beloved idea journal that I use for writing picture books:
It feels appropriate to put pictures up because of the garden on front. I've been doing a lot of work in my yard on mommy days (as opposed to artist days when my kid is at daycare) while my two-year-old plays with his bike.
You aren't still writing in a journal with lines, are you? Lines are like horizontal prison bars. What do you do when you want to write big? Or write in spirals? or write sideways. If you are an artist especially -- I dare you. Step out of the box. Buy a journal without lines next time and destroy it with your crazy handwriting (no matter if it's ugly).

It's a playground. Play.
I love having patterned paper mixed in with regular (well colorful) plain paper. I normally weave text all around the images or glue stuff down over the patterns.

These pictures were taken last year when I did a big photo blitz and took photos of lots of my personal journals to eventually post here. So the pictures above show empty pages. But I assure you the pages are not empty. They are full of crazy ugly handwriting and cross-outs. And the whole thing is all the more precious because it's where I've let myself go and allowed myself to play.

LATER UPDATE/AFTERTHOUGHT WORTH SHARING: I also should add for anyone interested, that I started calling my journal a playground after hearing George Shannon's phenomenal talk "The Journal as A Playground" several years ago. If you ever have the chance to hear George talk: do! He's an amazing speaker.

International Fake Journal Month

Did you know April is International Fake Journal Month?

I didn't. Until a few days ago.
What is a fake journal?

Well I suppose it could be many things. Maybe a fictional journal? Pretending you are somewhere or someone you are not? Maybe a journal you don't regularly keep? You decide.

I wish I had started a fake journal this month! Next year! I pledge to do it! I have kept dozens and dozens of different kinds of journals, yet I have never kept a fake one. I want to. And I will...

Meanwhile check out Minnesota artist Roz Stendahl's work on the International fake journal month blog. It's awesome!

Church Bells, Narrow Streets and Framed Haiku

A couple of inspirations and pretty things from my trip to Spain...
From Feb 19, 2009:

Church bells in the Andalucian white hill towns:

Narrow roads (we squeezed our nine-passenger van through this street):
And the beautiful hotel we stayed at in Arcos De La Frontera, La Casa Grande. Parts of the building (like the well) date back to the renaissance. There was a roof-top terrace, Haiku poems framed on the walls, and beautiful Moroccan lamps.I also ate one of the top handful of best meals I've ever eaten at a spanish/morroccan restaurant called "La Taberna de Boabdil" that night. Good food is definitely inspirational. No?

*Update*: I realized the poem picture I took is not haiku... It's a cool poem though, no?

Edible Book Contest

No kidding -- this is not a late april fool's joke -- I got to judge an edible book contest yesterday!

How fun is that?

There was a cake interpretation of Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Illuminated Booklava, Books bound with licorice, books bound with rice noodles and books made entirely of gum.

Anyway, thanks to the Book Binding Etsy Street Team for asking me to Judge. It was a hoot!

Check out the pics here and here.

Cuevas Al Jatib

From FEB 17, 2009: Drove along the coast of the Mediterranean of Spain in a 9 passenger van and stayed in a CAVE!
I love staying in unusual locations. Anything that re-frames the way I'm thinking tends to set my creative juices flowing.And so was true for Cuevas Al Jatib in Southeastern Spain near Baza!
There were also some pretty awesome steam baths in the caves. I want to go back to this place and have a crafty retreat!



Also -- Some crafty goodness from the drive that day:

I gave this handmade journey doll to my Grandmother. The journey doll carries lucky charms or good wish notes in her messenger bag. She's made to remind travelers that they have company and well wishes on a journey. She was made by my friend Amelia (Amelia doesn't have a website or I'd link you to her here -- Amelia sells journey dolls at local small craft shows). Grandma's Journey Doll brought us luck right away. Once I got her out we found a big road map book that made up for our really bad GPS system.

La Sagrada Família

FIVE things I did on Feb 16, 2009 (in Barcelona): NUMBERS 3, 4 and 5


3. Visited Gaudi's La Sagrada Família...
Antoni Gaudí's work inspires me like few others. He combined organic shapes, color and architecture in a way makes buildings feel alive.
The cathedral is still being built, over 100 years after it was started (1882). A few modern architects have added their own flare and interpretations of Gaudí's original plans. I wonder if I'll live to see its finish?
On this visit (I visited once 10 years ago), I was especially inspired by the exhibit that showed how Gaudí used natural science to examine things in nature and then translated that into his work.


Here I am with one of my favorite parts of the facade:
4. Ate mussels cooked in Austerian cider served with fries at a special mussel restaurant.

5. Walked by a few of other Gaudí's buildings, Casa Batlló, La Pedrera and stopped at the Church of Colònia Güell (also a Gaudí building)* on the way out of town in our 9 passenger van.
*A note on this -- the Church of Colònia Güell was one of my favorite places I visited in Spain 10 years ago. Unfortunately, during this visit, the hours were wrong on the signs (it said it should have been open, but it wasn't) so we were unable to go in. Stay tuned for more on the other places mentioned here...