different Journal Style for me....

I usually work in two journals that have been around for several years, just drifting and dreaming. One has song lyrics integrated into the image and one has quotes, words, thoughts on the pages.   I sort of accidentally started this new book by thinking that I had, and was carrying along if I move, a bunch of little pieces of random paper that I like but have not fitted into one of the sort of planned journals.

I started making sort of pages, different sizes etc and then ended up with a bunch of glued together page starts that I had no place to put. So... I sewed them together using an accordion folded spine, and ended up with a journal.  I have since painted and glued and made marks and by no means does it feel "done" but I thought some of my viewers might like to see where it is now.

First one cover:

and the binding:

Then an assortment of pages:

Pages are a variety of sizes, so often the edges of previous pages show when the journal is open.  I am liking that, and trying to find ways to incorporate the edges without actually working on them, just letting them show. 

There will probably be more on this journal as I go along. I posted a couple of these pages on Instagram and will probably use that venue to mention when I add some here.

Next Steps

I have lived in New York City since 1989.... that's a long time! I have WANTED to live in New York City since I was 8 years old.  I remember standing in the middle of a big sidewalk... probably Lexington Ave in the 40's and saying... "This is the best place to live forever."  And it is.

I have lived in 4 places in the City, each one better in some way than the one before and I am going to do some documentation of all that here off and on.

The reason for the trip down memory lane is this... I passed my 70th year a while ago.  I am still walking with the dogs almost every day for 2 miles at a pretty good clip.. we pass people. But I know how old I am and it seems to me that it is time to gather the wagons.... at least some of the wagons.

My kids live in Austin TX.  I have been there a couple of times but not in the last 10 years.  They are pushing me to come there "while you can still make your own friends and do art things and be yourself."

I can see the logic.  I have pondered it, struggled with it and resisted it... but it does make sense.  I know the kind of things I do.. collage, art bookmaking, pastels, a bit of painting etc. are done in Austin.  I have the links to the Austin Book Arts Center  and I know there are other places too. I know I can do this, but it does seem like an enormous challenge for me and for the menagerie.

SO I made a book to document it and to keep me moving toward it.  I originally felt that I was aiming for selling the co-op here in November - ish of this year but I now am thinking that April - ish of next year is better.  There is a lot to do and I am not going to let it be my sole focus for that time because there is this city I love and I am going to do some things I want to do one more time. I know I can come back.. but it isn't the same and I want to eat at certain places and visit certain places and document those too in my book.

OK. I loved Rebecca Makkai's book The Great Believers.  It was one of my favorites this year from my bookclubs.  I made the book for the next part of my crazy life out of the cover from The Great Believers.. I should say that the book fell apart while my friend was reading it, and she gave me the cover as a joke. I am going to mostly be writing, I think, but who knows.  On Instagram I have put some photos of the book I made, and sent people here for the reasoning behind the book.  I am adding a few photos below of the book........  I kept the title part of the cover and worked around it.  There are 7 folios each with an assortment of paper types and the cover of each folio is a piece of gelliprint paper that I liked.

"We were the great believers. I have never cared for any men as much as for these who felt the first springs when I did, and saw death ahead, and were reprieved—and who now walk the long stormy summer.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald, “My Generation”" is the epigraph for The Great Believers

I hope this book does not only document a long stormy summer.........

Clean and clear

This page set has been on the blog before, but since the poor blog has been lying about unused for so long, I figure everyone who has either seen it already or will remember it gave up on me a long time ago.  This is the second in my Instagram experiences..  This was a photo I took of a photography friend a zillion years ago.. maybe 35 or so... and used as the source for an image transfer.  The rest is collage and this is a point in the book where one page is the back of the previous spread I showed here and the right side is the back of the next spread, which I think is a 3-fold page.

I liked the circles.  I ALWAYS like circles..

This is the full spread, circles and all. All my pages are pretty spontaneous, I do NOT plan ahead, though I think about how to do that. This set of pages took maybe a year overall, but I think it is done. I build imagery up, take some out by painting over it, collage on top of them, and in this instance I did a Matte medium image transfer from a photo I shot years ago and always liked. 

Right side, some of what shows through is the paint samples on the original page. I liked the look and never quite covered them up. The bottom left is a set of 3 postage stamps that I liked.

The graphic is a piece of found printing, not sure where I got it, and I just used the circles and went off on my own. 

The summary pic will be on Instagram in a few minutes. 

closeups of a long term project...

Several years ago... seriously, can I start that way?... I think I have to... I made a Coptic stitch journal out of paint sample sheets.. the kind you get at the hardware store and they are tri-fold or even quatra-fold.  I overpainted them with gesso and with gouache and whatever I had around, and let the rectangles of the paint samples show through and just went ahead and sewed.

Every now and then on Instagram I show some page samples and I thought this might help me revive this blog.  Just because people are not blogging does not mean I should stop and besides, I am a long form kind of person, so this is a page spread from the Big Blue Book.

This is the full spread, it was a quad to start with, and I stitched the Coptic attachment through the center, so it folds out to look like this. 

This is the left side

Left Center

Right Center

Right Edge

The drawing is one of many I saved from my days in classes with figure models, and the rest is paint, stencils and collage from a variety of places.  I like the way it flows across the page and I have decided it is "done" .... for me that means it is time to leave it along and let it fly by itself. 

 NOW... I am referring people from Instagram over here.  The one thing IGram does that I like is it lets people comment easily. .... SO if you came here from IGram you can comment here or there, but let me know what you think.  I have a lot of "finished" pages that are sitting around and I thought that I might start showing some of them like this if this works.  Talk to me !!