Her instruction is to art journal about a community member who has positively influenced your life. This could be a teacher, student, coach, neighbor, a stranger, anyone who is not related to you. Your interaction(s) could have occurred at any point in your life. To learn more about art journaling, check out Kelley Brown's excellent blog: Art Journaling as A Creative Process.
I've been working on my own page during our daily art group at the hospital. As it emerged, I realized it was about my old and dear friend from art school days, Carol Spindel, a gifted author and artist.
This is what I wrote about my friend on the back side of the page:
I'm forever grateful to Carol for introducing me to the world of pattern because along with words and colors, it now forms the foundation of my art work. Cheers Carol!
My husband just looked at me funny for clapping at my computer screen (completely normal behavior in my mind)! I'm so excited to have on board and that I get to incorporate this beautiful page into the final journal! Thank you. It means more than I can express in words!
ReplyDelete(wow that is a lot of exclaimation points. I mean each and every one of them too.)
ReplyDeleteWhy thanks Phoenix. Looking forward to seeing your finished journal.
ReplyDeleteohhhhhhh, Hannah.....I am so touched! I still love patterns and I still see them all around me everywhere I look...and I still doodle those familiar-looking triangles and dots. These shapes seem to be in the blood and bones of my fingers...of course when I arrived in Africa, I thought, oh so that is where all these patterns come from. They were on the pots and woven into the fabrics. I am following a thread back into the labyrinth. How did I come to hold the other end? I really don't know. And how fortunate that we are still holding onto opposite ends of the same long thread of friendship. I feel honored to see my patterns in your work. Miss you!
ReplyDeleteMe too--and thank you for adding your thoughts to the mix. I love your line about following a thread back to the labyrinth and wondering how you came to hold your end. And also--so glad we are still holding the thread of friendship...
ReplyDeleteHi Hannah
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful tribute to yor long lasting friendship with Carol...clearly you have both gained somuch...I really enjoy the way that your page border of red triangles morph into red hearts ...surely fits the text.
Give Love: A Community Art Project is a wonderful concept...I'm blessed to have a number of evolutionary friends to honor...lovely idea....thank you Phoenix '-)
Kudos all around..for the beautiful idea of a community art project, for your journal piece and the dear note on the other side to your friend Carol. Your patterns and colors illustrate so perfectly the weave of our lives. The exciting colors in the triangles softened with the years of our lives and the haze of memory. This remembrance brought up one of my own..sitting in 5th grade math with a new student doodling endless spirals in our notebooks with the prized cartridge ink pens we were finally allowed to use. This student became a lifelong friend. She would break the blue cartridges and swirl the ink with glee while I tried to figure out how those pens worked, which side you used to get a smooth flow for cursive writing. All along we were supposed to be doing math. What a reflection thank you.
ReplyDeleteDonna--so good to hear from you. Before you mentioned it, I hadn't even seen the water color hearts! Funny how those things appear without one's knowing it.
ReplyDeleteBeth, I'm flattered--you have to know it didn't come easily and I resisted, only to be surprised at the power of the project. I love your description of your friend and the cartridge pens in your fifth grade class. I remember those pens so well-prized possessions they were.