Crumble

This is another digital art journal page. I was going through my digital files and had forgotten about these silhouette shapes. I love them. Their mysteriousness draws me to them. They remind me of ghosts; ghosts of our past selves, maybe.

The text is from a wonderful poem by Frank Bidart called The Old Man at the Wheel. The first part of the poem starts out like this: "Measured against the immeasurable/universe, no word you have spoken/brought light. Brought/light to what, as a child, you thought/too dark to be survived./By exorcism/you survived. By submission, then making./...

Then later in the poem are the two lines I use in this piece: "As you grip the things that were young when/you were young, they crumble in your hands./" The more I read the entire poem, the more I love it.

I receive the journal POETRY every month and it has been a great inspiration in my art lately. Not to mention a big boost to my poetry collection. There is a little paragraph about each poet in the back of the journal that lists their publishing credits. I have been adding some awesome books to my collection through this resource. Yay! ;)

I go back and forth between digital and physical journaling. I am feeling the pull to get back into the studio now. I've finished a page recently where I painted the page only with my fingers; it felt great! I like the freedom of smearing the paint over the page with my hand.

Today the studio calls again. It is supposed to be much cooler this weekend so I can open the windows and set up the exhaust fan. That means I am going to play with my encaustics for the first time in a long while. We shall see what that produces. I have had a few ideas in my head for a while now and I'm not sure how they will translate with the wax. The best way to find out is to experiment!

Everyone Is A Moon

I love the two digital kits called Stark and Void that I found at Deviant Scrap. They are full of inspiration! I used these elements from both kits to create this digital journal page. I loved this quote! It just knocked my Muse off her chair when she saw that! We are so in tune right now with the dark side and all things along those lines. ;)

Another thing I've been thinking about: Jamie Ridler has a wonderful feature at her website called Wishcasting Wednesday. You can sign up to receive an email from her every Wednesday which asks you a question that really gets you thinking. I love those and look forward to every Wednesday's question. You can read more about how it works on her site. It's a great idea! Every week I look at the questions and think about them and always say yeah, I should write about that one.

The question last week was What do you wish for less of? I think she meant maybe in a material sense, but maybe not. She leaves the questions pretty open. This question has been staying with me all week. I wish I could have less FEAR. I wish I could just create what I really feel and put out there without having to worry about what people would think and all of the baggage that goes along with that.

Usually I go ahead and do what I want but not always. Lately, I have really hesitated before starting some projects, afraid what people would think, and that has resulted in my not starting any of them. I hate where that is taking me. So that leads me back to Jamie's question and seeing the great timing for that!

And that brings me to this journal page. "Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anyone." Okay. But I'm not afraid to show just a little of mine now. ;)

Altered Heart

Yes, it's been WAY too long since I've updated my blog. I've been taking some down time and doing a lot of reading: lots of poetry and some fiction. The poetry has really been calling to me, helping to feed my starving Muse.

I've discovered many new (to me) poets that have really spoken to me. Among my favorites right now are Matthew Zapruder, Alice Fulton and Andrew Hudgins. I've bought their latest books and have been poring over their words just breathing in the inspiration through their imagery. It's been wonderful! So,that's where I've been.

I put together this digital piece this morning while listening to some music. I love the idea of using ink blots as images. Tangie Baxter at Scrapbook Graphics had a really cool new digital kit out that did just that and I had to grab it up and play with it. I also had this verse of a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti in my head called, "The World is a Beautiful Place" and thought I'd put it with this piece. Here's the complete verse:

"The world is a beautiful place

to be born into

if you don't mind happiness

not always being

so very much fun

if you don't mind a touch of hell

now and then

just when everything is fine

because even in heaven

they don't sing

all the time..."

And now that Fall is finally coming and the oppressive heat and humidity is starting to go away maybe I'll be a bit more motivated to make some more art! I do know that words and images are bombarding me and I'm excited about where the direction they are taking me. And hopefully I will be checking in here a little more regularly!