Altering A Book Alters The Soul
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.
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.
