cobaltika

i have almost finished my half-year journal, which i actually started on january 1 this year. it is an altered health book for pre-teens with many interesting references to sexual body parts. of course most of it is glued over, as it has turned into a gluebook, using-up-leftover-shreds and experimenting with new and ugly glazes book. more than a journal. in fact, i even glued over the parts where i actually WROTE something. it was only a few early pages. they seemed so dumb. the book is only big enough for about half of a year, so i am compelled to finish it by the end of the month and i am very very close. it seems like a book about nothing, but it is turning out to be a personal journal after all. i rather like it.

there is also another spread on flickr, upon clicking, but no way i am putting it right out here, since there is a gruesome polaroid of me with my bangs trying to grow out. why did i spend 3 hateful months in such misery??? i look terrible with no bangs and my rabbity pale eyelashes and brows. i look like my DAD. not good. not. so i took the scissors and WHACKED them last weekend and felt so much happier, even if they are crooked. they are very very short and weird and that makes me happy. and i am just letting my hair be fuzzy and untamed again. i can’t afford the nice aveda salon right now!! and besides they *never* cut my bangs short enough…

i also painted my toenails. summer!

i realized i had not shown any of it for some time - this year’s “journal about nothing” - but i *have* been working in it off and on. sometimes if i sit down with it, dull and drained at the end of the day, i feel i have at least done *something* artful. yesterday, my friend traci came over to clip and glue with me, after a short photoWander, and i found myself working with color, which usually unnerves me. i normally work pale and grungy. but she is very inspiring. color is HARD.

yesterday when traci came over to play, i had no interesting project going on, so i just worked in this year’s visual journal while we chatted. her stuff is so inspiring that i found myself playing with COLOR - and black. so NOT pale grungy me, but it was so much fun. i think color is incredibly hard to use. off and on, i pull out my paints and try, but wow. HARD.

in this year’s journal, i started out writing and trying to be normal, but finally gave up and just made it a glue-shit-down type of journal. it seems to be about nothing, but when you work intuitively, truths appear.

it is somewhat difficult to accept that this rather infantile visual journal is the only artwork i have done for most of this year so far. normally i am quite prolific. but much energy is going to clearing the hoard from the studio and learning new things about cameras. also the normal day-to-day things.

and then i decided that not only did the journal page not have to *say* anything. it did not have to *be about* anything either.

and then it was all more fun.

in this year’s visual journal i have “permission” to work as i please. or not at all. the only rule is that i Use Stuff Up. this spread uses altered photo/transparency experiments, old paints and assorted shreds. frankly i am finding it rather ugly so far. thank god most of the old paint was too dried up to use. awful dark colors!