seems messier

The fiber art group I belong to is meeting this week and some of us are kicking off an art journal round robin. Its been a few years since I've done one of these so I'm looking forward to it. The journal can be made from paper or fabric, whatever floats your boat. I went the paper route since I've taken an interest in that lately.

I've had my journal assembled for a few weeks but wasn't real sure how I wanted to do my pages. (We each pick a theme and do the first two page layout and then it travels around to the next person.) My theme is poetry. Yesterday I finally sat down and went to town on it.

I'm not sure this is done yet but I can always add more to it later when I get it back:


Here is the poem that I added, its one of my favorites:

detroit annie, hitchhiking
by judy grahn


Her words pour out of her as if her throat were a broken artery
and her mind were cut-glass, carelessly handled.
You imagine her in a huge velvet hat with great
dangling black feathers,
but she shaves her head instead
and goes for three-day midnight walks.
Sometimes she goes down to the dock and dances
off the end of it, simply to prove her belief
that people who cannot walk on water
are phonies, or dead.
When she is cruel, she is very, very
cool and when she is kind she is lavish.
Fisherman think perhaps she is a fish, but they're all
fools. She figured out that the only way
to keep from being frozen was to
stay in motion, and long ago converted
most of her flesh into liquid. Now when she
smells danger, she spills herself all over,
like gasoline, and lights it.
She leaves the taste of salt and iron
under your tongue, but don't mind.
The common woman is as common
as the reddest wine.

It'll be fun to read the poems that the others enjoy.

But since I'm only supposed to work on a single two page spread in my own book and I was on a roll, I decided to start putting together the other journal I painted the pages for a couple weeks back. All I concentrated on was adding collage elements and borders. Since its meant to be a journal, I want it to revolve around my writing as well as the collage so there are a lot of empty spaces. I figure I'll integrate and alter the collage elements as I write on each page.

Here are a few shots:

the cover

one layout

another layout

I'm really liking the uneven borders and I trimmed back several pages to get uneven sizes just to make it more interesting. I've got elements on everything but the last couple of pages and I really want to finish that up before I start writing and doodling in it. That way I can just haul it around with me when I go places and its all set to work on.

I've realized that I've trashed a lot of my markers over the years so I'm pretty limited in the colors I've got. But really? I don't know how far outside of black I'll venture. My aesthetic easily leans to the darker side (I'm sure you hadn't noticed) so I think I'll be okay.

I've noticed that my work table turns into a complete trainwreck in about thirty seconds when I'm working on these. Far quicker then when I'm working on fabric. I'm a fan of double sided tape so I avoid the whole glue fiasco which suits me fine. No warping of collages, no mess, no fuss. Just me and Martha's handy dandy double sided tape dispenser bonding for hours on end.

I ordered some solid fabrics yesterday so hopefully I'll be able to pick back up with my pieced abstract obsession in a few days. I want to redo the one I showed yesterday. The entire goal of that exercise was to find out if the sharp contrast produced the feel I wanted and it does. But the colors in the trial piece are a little ronald mcdonald-ish so I want to reconstruct it. I might keep the part that's already pieced (the left side), we'll see.

We're getting buried in snow today. I feel fortunate that I have a westie that loves the cold snowy/wet weather. Doesn't phase him at all so long as there isn't thunder involved. Of course, chasing him around the house to wipe the snowballs out of his leg fur is a whole different story...