Necessity is the mother of re-invention

[Sandi Wedemeier]

It's little wonder that one of my first tattoos was the phoenix. My personal mythology is filled with firey deaths and rebirths. Careers, relationships, jobs, life's work...all subject to change. I'm doing it again and for once, it's not exciting. It's filled with anxiety, panic, uncertainty and makes me simply want to curl up on the couch and rock.

I'm bound to inaction and now, more than ever, I need to move, act, defy, create. Recreate me...who I am, what I do, how I move through my world.

I've decided to share this here, with you, a community of artists, who can perhaps understand me best right now. The people in my immediate world don't seem to get it, I should just get up and get on. They don't understand the kinds of wounds that I feel right now and how that effects me.

I need to journey to the wellspring and to do that, I first have to stop rocking on the couch. Then I have to see the path that has to be cleared of rubble before I can even step foot on it.

Perhaps...what I need most of all...is a hero.

[Fairywebmother]

A thousand blessings on all the nightmare teachers from hell. Omg...I had more than my fair share. I'm sure I've said this before, in this group...or elsewhere, but my healing journal is about affirmations. I affirm that my life is abundant, my work joyful, my tummy full (and toned...lol) my needs are met. Journaling need not be about expressing memories, but can be about expressing where we can be...with a little change in perspective. For instance, in my journal I have a page that is all about welcoming 2008, welcoming joy, peace, abundance and all sorts of stuff I was really in no mood to welcome. As I painted the joyful images, my perspective began to change, as well. A change in perspective is all that's needed. My reality soon followed suit.

It's so easy to dwell in the past...but we never get what we want by focusing on what we don't want.

Sometimes I work in a journal...sometimes on seperate pages. They can always be bound, later.

[Sandi Wedemeier]

Christy...I had a short and painless (for me at any rate) struggle with a teacher over being left-handed. She tried to make me write with my right hand one day, I went home and told my mother, who told my father, who (in a move that still boggles my mind today) called the principle of my school and told him, in no uncertain terms, that if I was naturally left handed, I needed to be left alone. The teacher never said another word.

Now if only he'd done that when the art teacher was humiliating me...

[Christy]

Gee did your art teacher (she was an idiot by the way) know my 4th grade math teacher? My math teacher was very old school and felt that a child writing with her left hand was a waste of a chair. She would stand over me (sooo intimidating to a kid) and slap at my hand if I didn't have that pencil at a perfect 90 degree angle. Ugh to this day I think of her sometimes when I think about being left handed. Some teachers should simply not be teachers! Make art, and every single time you start to draw think about that teacher and smile... do it for you and if necessary to spite her. Heh.

[Sandi Wedemeier]

You know what's weird? I have no trouble working in my sketch book, not that I sketch much (I have an old art teacher from junior high to thank for taking the joy out of drawing and convincing me that I couldn't draw), but it's a place to write out ideas for...well, everything.

I think Alicia might be right though, it' the "art" part of art journal that might be tripping me up. that goes back to that same awful art teacher.

She was a "portrait artist", meaning that she took photos of people (not that she even took the photos, she just borrowed photos that clients liked) and painted their portraits from them. they looked *exactly* like the photo. I said and still say...what's the point of that?! She. however, decided that we were to make everything look exactly as she decided that it should look, so while others were on to other class projects, I was at the back of the classroom, trying to draw rotting bananas to look exactly like rotting bananas. Gosh, I hated her. I still do. I still feel the same humiliation when I try to draw.

However, I think what I may do, cut up some watercolour paper and make a bunch of backgrounds and use those for a page a day kind of thing. I'm fairly sure I can deal with a 6" x 6" page.

[Alicia Edwards]

Sandi, it doesn't even have to an "art journal." Call it whatever you want or whatever makes it easier. If it's a blank book, it's designed to be written in. The pressure of having to make something artful to go in it has made me hesitant to work in one. I think an approach of "putting something in this book everyday, even if it's writing one word with a ball-point pen" is a lot less stressful. At least it is for me. Maybe it would be for you, too?

[Stacie Williams]

My art journal is a book that I made. I bought big sheets & cut them down to size, ripped the guts out of a book that I got at a library sale. Painted the covers. Made signatures & sewed (is that a word?) them into the book. I'm not nearly as consistent as I'd like to be. But that's a time management issue ;-)

[Sandi Wedemeier]

Thanks Stacie...I've never tried an art journal and have been envious of people who do them. I can see how valuable it would be for me to keep some sort of visual journal of this 'trip', but for some reason, it trips the same anxiety trigger as working on decos. Perhaps it's the ban remembered from my childhood to NOT mark up books! I may have to cut up some watercolour paper and punch holes in them with my rollabind and work on each page individually.

[Sharon Bruner]

Great advise, Stacie. I've just started some the past few weeks and it's a great place to put down things either literally (written word) or symbolically with your art. It's your own little world.

[Stacie Williams]

>>And not freaking until I've been froken to.>>

That's cool. Start with that!

>>more than ever, I need to move, act, defy, create. Recreate me...who I am, what I do, how I move through my world.<<

If you need to create, but you're working things out in your head, try an art journal. You don't have to show it to anyone, but looking back, some things will become very clear. If you don't have a journal- make one. And start.....today. You'll be happy you did.

[Sandi Wedemeier]

Thank you Sharon. Any advise is good advise right now. Part of my problem, through the whole of my life, has been spending too much time in my head. I do need to add checking in here to my morning ritual...coffee, email and Bookartz.

And not freaking until I've been froken to. That's the hard one.