Journaling in the face of tragedy

Posted on | April 17, 2007 | 2 Comments

Yesterday I was avoiding the television. Once the tragedy started at Virginia Tech, I had to turn it off. I could feel myself falling into deep grief and I have been so good about being positive. I’m not ignoring the tragedy. I feel it deeply. So deeply that I had dreams about it last night. I cannot believe how crazy this world has become that a child can hurt other children. It boggles my mind and makes me worry and wonder what our world has and will come to. But I needed to move my thoughts yesterday and I needed to feel as if I had accomplished something. I knew art journaling would help.

So I turned off the TV, turned on iTunes and finally got to the journal I’ve been meaning to work on for the past two weeks! This is Lisa’s journal. It’s part of that round robin I’m taking part of. Below are the images I created. Because of the tragedy of the morning, I was sort of stumped and unmotivated. So, I took out my images from Anahata Katin‘s collage images – they’re her Spare Parts. They are all so bright and uplifting that I was able to start there and move forward to move to a more positive mood. Here for your viewing enjoyment!

	This is the first page in Lisa’s journal for April. It started as a self-portrait of a man (sorry! I covered up the info before I realized it!) and he had a lot of flowers in the background. I added some paint, flowers of my own, a hat, and doodled.
	This page started with green and yellow paint I had on my palette that I figured I’d use up! It was a plain page, so I just added the pieces around it to create a frame after I added the girl from Anahata‘s pages. She’s so spring-y, and yet there’s snow and rain all over the US!
	I have been focusing on portraits, and I find that the eyes are difficult to master. One of the problems I have is getting them to be the same size (or at least close enough that the portrait doesn’t appear to have a birth defect!), but I’m getting there. Luckily, it’s just paint, and I can paint over things again and again – and I do! I also want to capture the feeling through the eyes. It’s not easy to do, but I’m trying!
	This is a portrait called “Artist in Studio”. I thought it was a fitting image for me to use, since I had been painting portraits this past week! I put scans of two of my paintings on the “wall” and then added more to make this page mine without covering up the artist. I love that it’s a female artist and her young assistant!
	The landscape that graced this page looked so serene, that I had to use these images to show “serenity”. I added a hat to the woman who is staring out at the landscape, but it looked more like a fish or whale, so I went with it! LOL
	I had fun with this page. I started with the guy’s upper torso, which came already as one piece (I added my own touches, though! LOL Couldn’t help it!). Then I paired it with an upside-down tree that just seemed to fit as his lower body. I added the legs and some doodling and there he was. I put him in pink because, well, why not?
	These are a bunch of images from Anahata Katin who has some great collage images to start with! Then I cut them up and turned them into this sanctuary and added some words of what makes my studio a sanctuary.
	This page was of two women looking out a window. I just doodled on it, added the text and hats from Anahata’s collage elements and it looked done to me!

I have spent a lot of time the past week working on more portraits, but none are finished to my satisfaction, so I will continue to work on those today and then, hopefully, post at least one tomorrow.

Oh, and in the good news department, I went to my doctor yesterday and my hearing (on the one side where I can hear!) is stable, and even slightly improved in one of the high frequency areas by 10db. This means that all the treatments are working not only for the vertigo, but also to preserve my hearing! I cannot tel you what a relief that is. Sometimes I wonder and worry about all the “junk” we’re putting into my body, but then I get news like this and I’m reassured.

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