14 Secrets for a Happy Artist's Life

Some more WTJ inspiration from Jamie Ridler and also from "Breathe"!!

2009-07-18T08:16:00.000-07:00

I've been enjoying Jamie Ridler's inspiring Wreck This Journal material on her website and also on her "next chapter blogspot". From this blogspot I popped over to several of the linked blogs of others on the "wrecking crew" and found Melinda's lovely blog, Take a Slow Breath. Melinda even took her camera into the shower with her "Wreck This Journal" for documentation, so there's a video of this on her blog if you scroll down a bit. We need Bravery in Wreckage awards!

Pocketbooks!

2009-07-15T10:05:00.001-07:00

Hi, Just wanted to show off these sweet pocket-books Tabitha and I made on vaction. I was inspired by an old issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine you can see in the photo-I think it's the Dec 2006 issue. We sure are having fun here in a little cabin in the mountains! -Gioia

Do you remember the Guardian Angel Swap back in February?

2009-07-10T04:20:00.000-07:00

Several friends were going through extreme hard times then so I set up an angel swap, sending our angels to my friends. You can read about the original swap here Fellow art therapist, Carol Lark was struggling with leukemia at that time. On July 7th, oh happy day, she was given the official IN REMISSION all clear! I'm sure your healing Guardian Angels helped as did the Healing Tags that the 14 Secrets artists sent! Thank you so much, all who participated in these two art swaps!

Catherine's Wreck This Journal

2009-07-09T13:16:00.000-07:00

I just finished working in Catherine's journal, and I have to blog it. The journal was simple, like the Samantha's easy-peasy demo, but simpler and there's no concern about what to do with all that yucky lined paper. Contact paper covers both sides of cover images, giving it a lot of strength but keeping it light in weight. She's stitched some patchwork cloth on the spine for added strength. Catherine also stitched pocket on the inside and sewed file folders cut to size in the center.

Here's the front cover.
Here's the back cover:
The open view so you can see the spine:
Inside cover with cloth pocket for our sign-in tags and the flight list.

Here's my spread and sign-in tag:
The prompt I worked on was to use corrugated cardboard to create my spread. I got so into it I had to do my sign in card with corrugated cardboard. I love the weathered texture. Now to add some to my own Keri Smith book.

More wreckage for the Wreck This Journal

2009-07-04T14:11:00.000-07:00

Here's some more Samantha Kira journaling fun:

And if you want to decorate your "wreck this journal" package with a "wreckage" sticker, just click on this image and print it out on blank sticker paper, or regular paper and glue or tape to your mail art!

More Wreck This Journal stuff.

2009-06-30T11:37:00.000-07:00

Tag for Julie's Journal

I finished working in Julie's amazing and very wrecked (but no human or pet fluids please) "Wreck This Journal". The theme for this round was nature so I added feathers to a page with one feather on it but there's plenty of space for more elements from nature.

Then I chose the "cut this page and weave things into it" prompt and thinking National Geographic is a pretty much nature focused I used pages from that for my weft or warp... not sure which. I tried to merge the colors with citrisolve but I was doing something wrong with that effort. So I put a little homemade walnut ink on my pages to add a certain wrecked quality.

And since we like inspiration here's what happened with another "Wreck This Journal" round robin. One spread was completely stuck together, so I pried the pages apart and found that the wrecking had gotten a little ... er... wrecked. Well I found that I loved that shredded Asian look a lot (like my childhood memories, shredded and Asian)!

So here's my piece which I'll be sorry to see leave Prospect. I may have to do something like this in my Keri Smith book!
Now if you are looking for inspiration but not quite as distressed as this, then take a look at Kelly's blog Dragonfly Reflections. Scroll down to see what she has done to her Keri Smith book. Just lovely!

Fabulous Wrecking Links

2009-06-27T04:40:00.000-07:00

Carol sent some Fabulous Wrecking Links for all of us journal wreckers and these are so helpful. Thank you Carol and for the wreckers, read on...

Whether you wondered what the wrecking was all about or you knew but were having trouble making the leap, Jamie Ridler has the answer on her regular blog (which is extraordinary by the way!)and on her extra special Wreck This Journal blog. She has lots of helpful videos all about what wrecking is for, what it can do for us. Very helpful!

She's also got some interesting community activity with these blogs. You can participate easily and see what your fellow participants are doing with links to everyone's blog write in the blog posts. Seems like an amazing idea. You can become part of her WishCasting Wednesday by blogging about a wish (there is a prompt on her blog) and then add your blog to her list. Easy. Then go and visit fellow blogger's and support them in their wishes.

Now to figure it all out for this blog, so we could share our good wishes and intentions right here!

Autumn conferences

2009-06-23T13:46:00.000-07:00

Susan Anand and I will be presenting puppet and story book making workshops in two venues this fall. The first will be in September for the Buckeye Art Therapy Association, where we will give you all the tools to create your own puppets and books and to create your own workshops. The second venue will be in Dallas at the AATA conference. It will be a full day pre-conference course where the subjects of puppets, stories, books, animation, and art therapy will be explored in depth.

We hope to provide tools and inspiration which you can use in your search for resilience narratives in your own practice. We will focus on finding and developing characters which embody strength and flexibility, creating therapeutic metaphors which can speak directly to the inner artist, and we will look at techniques for putting the resilience narratives into a format which can be easily shared and reviewed, whether that is a story book or a video on youtube. The advantage of using imagery, stories, ideas, and characters from the individuals you are working with, is that strengths and assets are acknowledged, stories are valued, and the learning is therefore "inside out". As a consequence, individuals are engaged and participate more fully in their own therapy or learning (Gerity 2006).

This full-day course will include an introductory narrative with various kinds of puppets, giving participants a range of puppet possibilities. We will provide examples of simple book structures including a book created with one piece of paper, simple pamphlet binding, and an "altered" child's board book - all of which are suitable for most art rooms and most budgets.

The first half of the day will focus on making puppets and characters, using a variety of collage techniques with card stock. Once the characters are developed, participants will create the storybook as a companion art piece for the paper puppet. Participants will experience the ease of eliciting narratives of resilience, healing, and strength, while learning how to create playful paper puppet characters and a simple book structure. Group stories will be created when the puppets and characters come together in small groups. The instructions will be fairly simple so this course can be replicated in most art settings and with limited budgets.

The final discussion will allow for sharing of creations and how resilience, healing, and strength may be discovered when working with puppets and narratives.

For more information, see the BATA SYMPOSIUM website and the AATA CONFERENCE website or email me. Both events look fabulous! Take a look at the keynotes for both! I'm certainly glad to be going. Hope to see you there!

Do you know Danny Gregory?

2009-06-21T13:29:00.000-07:00

For some major drawing inspiration I'd say Danny's website or any of Danny Gregory's books are wonderful. Here's a drawing video.

Portrait Demo from DannyGregory on Vimeo.

Now to go get my art journal!

Hope Springs Eternal - Illness and Art

2009-06-16T11:20:00.001-07:00

"Art and illness are both a process, a journey, never entirely completed, always a new technique to learn, a new therapy to try."

- Patti Edmon

Patti Edmon sent me a link to her article with some great ideas in it! Plus she mentions her 14 Secrets experience which is a delightful thing to read!! Go quickly and check out the whole article. Get inspired and get some audacious hope! Bravo Patti!Hope Springs Eternal - Illness and Art, Jun 2009

Do you know Andrea Dorfman?

2009-06-15T12:15:00.000-07:00

Do you know the music video for Tanya Davis' song Art by Andrea Dorfman? Very cute! All about Art!

Not bad, eh? Especially the wise quotes about art like "A broken heart can make great art" or "Art can take you places"! Want another one about bravery and blue bicycles?

Do you know someone who may be needing a good wish or a prayer?

2009-06-13T03:20:00.000-07:00

You can light a candle by clicking on these candles.

I've been thinking that so many of us are struggling with one thing or another, that maybe a little corner of 14 Secrets could be devoted to good wishes for people, ourselves included of course (it is important to take care of ourselves) would be a wonderful thing. Not really sure how to do that, yet, but meanwhile there is this wonderful website, Gratefulness.Org, which has a place where you can light candles for people or for what ever you would like to light a candle for. Try it out, it's a lovely spot of candlelight on the internet.

http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/enter.cfm?l=eng

Here are some interesting ideas...

2009-06-06T17:38:00.000-07:00

Here are some interesting ideas for any journal wreckers out there. What do you think?

Now before we mail out our journals it would be a good idea to try a prompt or two ourselves. So here's the theme, drawn straight from the hat:

A Good Time of Day

So what ever prompt you chose, try to work this theme into it!
More soon.
-Lani

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Flow

2009-05-26T04:35:00.000-07:00

More on Wreck This Journal Please - heading out June 15.

2009-05-20T14:05:00.000-07:00

Here's the cover now, and it's a simple journal, purchased at the dollar store, and I took out the lined composition pages and replaced them with file folder pages. See Samantha Kira's video, I followed it very easily.
I made little envelopes with cards for people to sign boldly and used back and front inside cover.

Here's a typical page with the prompt. This one is an add-to so anyone can work on this page.

And here's my back cover. This journal will be heading around the 14 Secrets group starting June 15.

Dear WTJRR members

2009-05-16T05:08:00.000-07:00

Detail from Lani's Wreck This Journal Please.

Lore has just asked for some clarification here and I think that is a marvelous idea.
First of all there are seven of us and we have space for one more.
Second, about the books, I've posted some information here
with a demo on how to create a blank page composition book. (Mail out is June 15.) I've done two of them now, and they are easy. Another option is gluing pages together and gessoing and a third option is to buy your composition style book with blank pages from BareBooks
http://www.barebooks.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=65
Mail out is June 15.
Once you have your book and this is really important, please print out the mailing list (it's our database with our addresses) and attach it inside your journal. It could be your sign in page if you art it up a bit, and give people a place to sign in.
Mail out is June 15.
The final step is to create prompts, one per page or one per spread which is how Keri Smith has done her book. You can use her prompts, or alter them, or create your own. If your mind goes blank just google art prompts or art journal prompts or journal prompts and you will have more that enough to fill many journals!
Finally when your journal is ready to go I'll put all of your theme suggestions in a hat and pull one out per 2 week period so that everyone is working on the same general them (color, etc.) but working on different prompts. You get to pick which prompt goes best with the theme.
Now does that sound like fun or what? Mail out will be June 15.
Here's the "Wreck This Journal" website
http://www.wreckthisjournal.com/
and many WTJ flickr groups
http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?q=wreck+this+journal
Yours,
Lani
PS -We'll be starting June 15 so better get started loading up the journals with prompts.

Easy Peasy Wrecking has begun!

2009-05-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

Having gotten so enthusiastic about "Wreck This Journal" and the discussion around it on our yahoo group, I really rolled up my sleeves and started to work on Keri Smith's book (which I'd covered with seaweed as a part of the Disintegration Project). I hadn't realized how difficult it is to "wreck" or maybe how much concern I have that things look "nice" (what ever that means).

Anyway the book is really getting wrecked and the more beat up it is looking, the more I'm loving it. Isn't that the strangest thing? I can almost forget about all the creepy little sow bugs that I had to flick off the book. Yuck.

So now on to our Wreck This Journal round robin. I think I'm getting loosened up about the whole thing and I'm ready to start creating. So I went to the dollar store and got a couple of composition books and some file folders and I followed Samantha Kira's easy journal making directions and I'm ready to go. Just going to work on the sign in page and create the directives.

Dollar store Composition Book. These dots could do damage to the retina, I'm sure of it!

Here's the kind of file folders Samantha uses. They are easy to cut down to size and then sand the edges for a uniform (well almost) look.

I bound the file folders into the journal cover, and wrapped the linen theread with some interesting fibers. I added a button in the middle.

This one has some paint, images, and Alex Plus for texture.

Back cover.

Detail. It's really quite a fun activity, the wrecking business. And I really do find insights pop up in the process, which is never a bad thing.

Wreck This Journal! Are we having fun yet?

2009-05-09T13:57:00.000-07:00

Adding to the "Wreck This Journal! Are we having fun yet?" discussion over at 14 Secrets yahoo group, I found Samantha Kira's Easy-Peasy journal tutorial. It is excellent and I will be trying this out and letting you know how it worked for me. What fun! More soon.

Gioia went to the Spoutwood Farm Fairy Festival!

2009-05-07T06:35:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful day-hope the fairies can find you, too, wherever you are!

Mankind is No Island

2009-05-01T06:28:00.000-07:00

Oh my word, I love this! Bravo Jason van Genderen!

The Painting Experience with Stewart Cubley

2009-04-28T11:25:00.001-07:00

Found this lovely video, thanks to YouTube. Art as a journey. I took a workshop in Cubley's method with Carol Lark at an Art Therapy conference in Montreal last year.

This year Carol struggles with a different kind of journey. May it go well. (She did enjoy all our healing tags and guardian angels.)

On a related note, visit Cathy Malchiodi's Healing Arts Blog over at the Psychology Today website. She's got a great one about art, healing, and cancer, called "The Bone Fractured Fairy Tale: A Story of Art as Salvation".

Altering the DSM

2009-04-28T08:33:00.001-07:00

Altered DSM 016
Originally uploaded by rehuxley

Take a look at this flickr stream! Wow, what a great idea!
Thanks Gretchen for pointing it out. Now where is my old DSM3 anyway?

How about some instructional videos?

2009-04-24T12:05:00.000-07:00

Here's Claudine Hellmuth: (creating background papers with stamp pad inks)

Laurie Mika: (Talks about her beginnings and what she's up to now)

Tim Holtz: (Using Masks)

Michael DeMeng's source of inspiration (or one of them)

Earth Day is coming...

2009-04-17T14:32:00.000-07:00

Earth Day is coming. What should we do?

Look what Lore put together with our gifts for Cyn!

2009-04-13T14:14:00.000-07:00

Look what Lore put together with our gifts for Cyn! Isn't it beautiful! Don't you all feel so proud to be a part of this? Cyn will know that folks care! Excellent! Thank you everyone for helping with this and thank you so much Lore for hosting!