Grungy, Messy and Mysterious

I don't like to show unfinished pieces but I'm finding I am doing it more often. Because I have ADD where art is concerned, I have a bazillion different things in progress. I mean I have a lot of canvases that I've set aside for years. Do you do that? How do you feel about sharing something that's not finished? I came across Roxanne Coble's work before I knew she was a guest teacher at 21 Secrets. I found I was drawn to her style. She suggested to us to work in areas. I call it little fragments. The pages seem fragmented yet they're not. In the end they all blend into one. It's almost as if each section of the piece tells a story and the story is in your imagination. I dunno. I find her work grungy, messy, and mysterious all at once and I like that. These couple of pieces are based on or inspired by Roxanne Coble's art journaling process. They don't feel or look finished to me. Maybe I'll return to show you what they look like when I feel they are. Roxanne Coble's process is altering a book to use as her art journal. I like that idea. I also like the idea that what's on the pages that are being altered often are the inspiration to what follows. With mine, I left certain images because they took me in another direction. They took me to the next fragment. I also like that there is no use of someone else's stencils or stamps. Mark making was all by the artist's hand. That's refreshing to me. I had an old sort of periodical magazine. Not hard cover but the pages are thicker than a normal magazine. I chose to add some of my vintage family photos. I am reminded by Roxanne saying how long it sometimes takes her to finish a page as there are so many layers, so she has many pages going on at the same time. And I agree, it's kind of cool to have a bunch of backgrounds laid down and then you come back to it for the final doodling phase. So, here are a couple of unfinished pages inspired by her workshop Fragments and Mysteries.

A Valentine to Oneself

I've never particularly been in to Valentine's Day for many reasons, but when I led my mixed media workshop on that Valentine's Day Saturday, I had big pieces of brown paper laid out on the table for each participant. My directions were for us to gesso the page. The next step was for us to draw a large heart in the middle of the page and scribble a letter to ourselves... what ever we wanted to say........... just fill the heart with words, scribble, babble, blah, blah, blahs. Didn't have to be legible. No one was going to read it. The next part was for us to paint, collage, anything to fill in the heart to our heart's content. What they did with it after that was up to them, but my thinking was that they could then use this piece as collage paper in several ongoing projects, such as our altered children's board book. Here are some of those ongoing and completed board books. I am having a blast creating with this small group of women. They are the high light of my week. We are all working at different paces; some have finished their board books and are moving on to altering a deck of cards, and at the same time working on a larger altered book. More on that to come later. Thanks for stopping by.

MAY 16, 2009

Books have always been important to me. Book in my house never got or get thrown away. They may be given freely to someone or to an organization, a library, but never just tossed in the garbage can. Recently, I have a fascination for taking a garbage or throwaway book find and imagining what it could become. My first attempt started when a coworker happened to mention she was getting rid of some of her young daughter's books to which I excitedly said,"No! Please bring them to me."

This is my first attempt making an Altered Book. It's not a fast process by any means, but it has taken on new meaning for me in terms of using all types of mediums, and it's by trial and error to see what really works. Suddenly, embroidery thread, butttons, dried flowers, ribbons, hem binding, stickers, stencils, even shredded paper from my shredder has made its way to the pages. I also have a "thing" for anything vintage, so it will, in time, make its way to a page somewhere. I recently remembered I already have some vintage photos from my collection of family photographs from my trip to Oregon in the summer of 2006, which will at some point find a place in an altered book or art journal page.

Somehow, I think maybe a seven year old child might enjoy looking at this altered book more than the original. The title A Book About Being a Bad Sport (a help-me-be-good-book) has become a book about being Jo, a help-me-be-me book, in case you cannot read my sticky note.

I used to make these cut out paper dolls when I was a kid and happened to find them just about the time I was beginning this project........ and since I am still a kid and a dancing girl, I had to remake them for this. They are after all, part of who I am and this book is after all, now, about being me.