Lauren Redniss has captured a fine review from the The New York Times with her new biography of Marie Curie:
Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout
Click on the title above for the Amazon site and scroll down on the page to sample pages. They are very enticing.
Read The New York Times review by Dwight Garner: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/books/22book.html?ref=books
In the very beginning of the review, Garner does an excellent job of giving an explanation of the fuzzy, tentative status that graphic novels hold in the literary world, and general miasma rest-of-the-world, I guess.
thought for rough days:
Even Sheriff Brody took Dramamine before getting on Quint's boat, the Orca, in "Jaws".
Dear Reader,
I digitally removed his name. You should be advised that this is where visual journaling gets the "journaling" part. Generally journals are private and uncensored. But, being a visual journal, these pages wanted to be seen.
Sincerely,
The Librarian
P.S. Click to enlarge.
Sincerely,
The Librarian
P.S. Click to enlarge.
excerpt of the day:
As if by the very suggestion, she found her eyes dragged away from the river and up to the left of the porch, where the last hill before town blotted out the stars.
"Here," he said. "I hope these'll be all right--"
"Look at the Marsten House," she said.
He did. There was a light on up there.
--'Salem's Lot by Stephen King (Ch. 2, end section 6)
"Here," he said. "I hope these'll be all right--"
"Look at the Marsten House," she said.
He did. There was a light on up there.
--'Salem's Lot by Stephen King (Ch. 2, end section 6)
song lyric of the day:
'Cause every bit of land is a holy land
And every drop of water is a holy water
And every single child is a son or a daughter
Of the one earth mama, and the one earth papa
...
You say you're a Christian 'cause God made you
You say you're a Muslim 'cause God made you
You say you're a Hindu and the next man a Jew
And we all kill each other 'cause God told us to? Nah!
-from "Hello, Bonjour!", Michael Franti.
Possibly the best hymn or holiday song ever written. Good to dance to, too.
And every drop of water is a holy water
And every single child is a son or a daughter
Of the one earth mama, and the one earth papa
...
You say you're a Christian 'cause God made you
You say you're a Muslim 'cause God made you
You say you're a Hindu and the next man a Jew
And we all kill each other 'cause God told us to? Nah!
-from "Hello, Bonjour!", Michael Franti.
Possibly the best hymn or holiday song ever written. Good to dance to, too.
song lyric of the day:
So you are a superstar
Get off the cross
We need the wood
-Tori Amos "Big Wheel"
Get off the cross
We need the wood
-Tori Amos "Big Wheel"
dedication
When I happened upon this book (read about the project here: http://www.1000journals.com/):
I knew I had to take it home when I read this dedication:
Then, this week, I met someone who had also (co)wrote a book essentially dedicated to those same people (like me) and to helping them recognize their creativity and embrace it, set it free, play with it like a good friend. I watched him demonstrate techniques on using watercolor colored pencils to a group of students in a guest-artist workshop made possible by an excellent and hard-working middle-school art teacher. He also brought lots of his own visual journals for us to see and browse. The guest-artist was Eric Scott (on the right, below):
These are the authors of The Journal Junkies Workshop, which is an excellent beginner's guide to visual journaling.
I had actually misunderstood how to use the watercolor pencils (when I had tried to learn on my own), so Eric's demonstration was reinforced by technique instructions in the book:
The book's table of contents gives you the sense of fun they took into organizing the techniques and equipment suggestions:
I love the book and had an extra surprise in discovering a new direction of research and reading in the book's own dedication. This one is dedicated to Dan Eldon, a man who began his own first visual journal as a young boy in Africa and continued the practice throughout his life...right up until his death at age 22 while on a photojournalism investigation in Somalia. Intrigued? Indeed. Here's the site about his life and work, but also the titles of the books that sampled from his many journals:
hat heads
I like hats. Especially cloches and anything with feathers. Of course, those kinds of hats don't have much of a place in the normal American middl-ish-class life I have. I certainly don't attend horse races.
But hats like that don't like to hide in closets, so I really really want some nice vintage milliner heads for displaying them, maybe some glass forms, and so forth. Well, that's not happening.
I decided to make my own. I began with the idea of using a clear plastic form, on which my black cloche for the Dorothy Parker costume was shipped, as a form for building up a whole head. But I'm new to paper mache and it soon became clear that a whole head might be a leap for a beginner.
Then, while on safari in A.C. Moore, I happened to look up on a top shelf and espy a topiary form that my mind's eye immediately transformed into the perfect beginnings of a hat holder!
And so begins a new adventure:
I used a basic finger nail file / emory board to smooth off the seams and rough spots of the green ball and gessoed this one without the paper mache layers. (I was out of sandpaper and I thought using the palm sander would be overkill.)
I plan on making faces on them akin to the vintage millinery heads used centuries ago. This is one of my favorites, which is actually a contemporary piece modeled on the style of those made in the 1800s:
But hats like that don't like to hide in closets, so I really really want some nice vintage milliner heads for displaying them, maybe some glass forms, and so forth. Well, that's not happening.
I decided to make my own. I began with the idea of using a clear plastic form, on which my black cloche for the Dorothy Parker costume was shipped, as a form for building up a whole head. But I'm new to paper mache and it soon became clear that a whole head might be a leap for a beginner.
Then, while on safari in A.C. Moore, I happened to look up on a top shelf and espy a topiary form that my mind's eye immediately transformed into the perfect beginnings of a hat holder!
And so begins a new adventure:
This is one (above) with layers of paper mache put down first.
Here, I've applied gesso to the first one, on top of the paper mache layers. You can see what the foam looks like prior to any work.
I used a basic finger nail file / emory board to smooth off the seams and rough spots of the green ball and gessoed this one without the paper mache layers. (I was out of sandpaper and I thought using the palm sander would be overkill.)
I plan on making faces on them akin to the vintage millinery heads used centuries ago. This is one of my favorites, which is actually a contemporary piece modeled on the style of those made in the 1800s:
I found one (not this one) from an online auction with an expected price over $1500!
song lyric of the day:
"You've made me into someone who should not hold a loaded gun"
-from "So Long" by Ingrid Michaelson
-from "So Long" by Ingrid Michaelson
barnes & noble bathroom stall wall
I love my iPhone. Quality photography whenever you need it, on the fly...or when the fly is down and the toilet seat provides the picture stability.
I am brave with words, but haven't been so with visual arts. If my pages are clunky, smeared, poorly designed, amateur, lacking proper technique...well, they are indeed. The point is to find confidence in the pages of a private journal, a book that closes, that can be tucked under a pillow, hidden from company.
The problem is that I'm a closet exhibitionist...if that's possible. And so my first pages are begging to strut their stuff on a public stage, and so they end up here.
If you don't find my own work interesting, I have begun a rich library of visual journaling and art-related links under the "Blogville" heading to the right. There are some incredible artists our there that can serve as inspiration where I fail. Also, I've included links to resources related to visual journaling and private art as a therapuetic exercise. It is a powerful thing to quiet the mind and focus on beautiful colors and lines. I feel some kind of intent and productivity when I have ink and paint under my nails, paper mache glue splashed on my clothing (I've come to love aprons), and a messy work desk. This intent brings peace to my mind. Even if the end product is dorky and only has any real significance for me.
The piece of printed page in the green journal page corner (below) is torn from an old hardcover edition of Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson.
The problem is that I'm a closet exhibitionist...if that's possible. And so my first pages are begging to strut their stuff on a public stage, and so they end up here.
If you don't find my own work interesting, I have begun a rich library of visual journaling and art-related links under the "Blogville" heading to the right. There are some incredible artists our there that can serve as inspiration where I fail. Also, I've included links to resources related to visual journaling and private art as a therapuetic exercise. It is a powerful thing to quiet the mind and focus on beautiful colors and lines. I feel some kind of intent and productivity when I have ink and paint under my nails, paper mache glue splashed on my clothing (I've come to love aprons), and a messy work desk. This intent brings peace to my mind. Even if the end product is dorky and only has any real significance for me.
The piece of printed page in the green journal page corner (below) is torn from an old hardcover edition of Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson.
NY Times Sketchbook
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/books/review/31shapton.html?ref=books
Leanne Shapton: "I made a series of paintings from the book, and afterward, whenever I read a story, any mention of a tree stood out like an old friend. It’s hard to find stories about Canada that do not include references to its trees. Here, from my bookshelf, are passages from some of my favorite Canadian authors on their leafy heritage."
Leanne Shapton: "I made a series of paintings from the book, and afterward, whenever I read a story, any mention of a tree stood out like an old friend. It’s hard to find stories about Canada that do not include references to its trees. Here, from my bookshelf, are passages from some of my favorite Canadian authors on their leafy heritage."
From Berger's Ways of Seeing...
On the invention of the camera:
On the camera and reproduction of original art:
On using reproductions and originals to create personal meaning:
Every drawing or painting that used perspective proposed to the spectator that he was the unique centre of the world. The camera -- and more particularly the movie camera -- demonstrated that there was no centre.
The invention of the camera changed the way men saw. The visible came to mean something different to them. This was immediately reflected in painting.
For the Impressionists the visible no longer presented itself to man in order to be seen. On the contrary, the visible, in continual flux, became fugitive. For the Cubists the visible was no longer what confronted the single eye, but the totality of possible views taken from points all round the object (or person) being depicted. (page 18)
On the camera and reproduction of original art:
The uniqueness of every painting was once part of the uniqueness of the place where it resided. Sometimes the painting was transportable. But it could never be seen in two places at the same time. When the camera reproduces a painting, it destroys the uniqueness of its image. As a result its meaning changes. Or, more exactly, its meaning multiplies and fragments into many meanings.
This is vividly illustrated by what happens when a painting is show on a television screen. The painting enters each viewer's house. There it is surrounded by his wallpaper, his furniture, his mementoes. It enters the atmosphere of his family. It becomes their talking point. It lends its meaning to their meaning. At the same time it enters a million other houses and, in each of them, is seen in a different context. Because of the camera, the painting now travels to the spectator rather than the spectator to the painting. In its travels, its meaning is diversified.
One might argue that all reproductions more or less distort, and that therefore the original painting is still in a sense unique. (pages 19-20)
On using reproductions and originals to create personal meaning:
Adults and children sometimes have boards in their bedrooms or living-rooms on which they pin pieces of paper: letters, snapshots, reproductions of paintings, newspaper cuttings, original drawings, postcards. On each board all the images belong to the same language and all are more or less equal within it, because they have been chosen in a highly personal way to match and express the experience of the room's inhabitant. Logically, these boards should replace museums. (page 30)
Seeing / Art
Yesterday I blew a 1/3 of my remaining monthly budget on 2 new books (yes, I have that little left until payday). I picked up Ways of Seeing by John Berger and The Necessity of Art by Ernst Fischer.
Blog / Decor / Textile
Here's a wonderfully inspiring post from Rambling Rose: http://ramblingrose.typepad.com/journal/2010/10/the-wall.html
Just today, in the book store, I flipped through a magazine featuring a space created in a very similar style. Basically mixed and matched fabrics were used to create a wall of color in a space.
I absolutely love this idea. And with an intensely white apartment, this is a very useful idea. Material could be purchased from proper fabric stores, or re-defined from any textile found in second-hand stores, even wonderful designs in new fashions. There are many clothing pieces that I love to look at, but know right well would never flatter my figure. What a wonderful way to add that pattern into your life without leaving the clothing section feeling like a total fashion flop. Of course, this would qualify you as an art geek, or some kind of geek, for sure. But geeks are good people.
I've kept a journal pretty regularly, or regularly written of personal things, for almost all my life. In the last couple of years, I've tinkered with visual expression: sketching, painting. The largest thing that has kept me from exploring art further has been a fear of imperfection. Making a mistake. Doing something that looks stupid.
Somewhere, I broke through some mental barrier and I feel much braver and confident to try things. This doesn't mean I may be eager to show what I create online, but I am already heartened by the amount of art that is shared online. And that art is often very personal, not perfect, but full of meaning and significance. The presence of that work on the web is another influence on my growing confidence.
Recently, I found myself in the art section of Barnes & Nobel and I left with a copy of 1000 Journals Project by Someguy and Kevin Kelly. The book is an amazing glimpse into an ambitious project to connect the journal writings of hundreds and thousands of people. Basically, 1000 blank journals were given graphically appealing covers and an explanation of their purpose was written on or in them. They were sent randomly to individuals around the country, continent, world, with the simple instruction to use the journal as they pleased, and then to pass it along to someone else, by any means necessary. For some, this meant mailing them to other people. Others simply passed the journals to strangers on the street. Some laid the journal down on tables, benches, subway cars, to wait for the next person to pick them up, read the instructions and keep the book rolling.
What the project developers did not expect was how this experiment with collective creativity would grow into the virtual world online. Book-finders began to share their contributions or findings within the journals by scanning the pages and sending the images to the originators, who then compiled and shared them with the rest of the world via the web. Journal meets world. More about this project can be found here: http://www.1000journals.com/
That initial project is still underway, as long as any of the original 1000 books are still floating around. Recognizing that so many individuals were inspired and intrigued by the concept, they offered a second experiment: the 1001 journal project. This 1001st journal is the online community of journalists, diarists, memoir writers, visual journalists, and reflective artists who choose to continue the collective creativity humming by willing sharing their journals online. This continuation of the initial project can be found here: http://1001journals.com/
I've registered as a member of the 1001 community, but have not yet shared anything personal. I'm still working on the first pages of my first visual journal. But already I feel a sense of release and accomplishment. It is nice to have something to look forward to working on for an extended time. And this visual journal is something that will define itself over time.
Perhaps I will begin a second one with the express purpose of documenting family history and photography. It may take the form of a mixed media collage book. But right now, I'm most invested in the creation of a deeply personal book that combines words, images, colors, and mixed media to express my experience of life. There will be things that I feel confident sharing. And some things that will remain in the book, on my table, unshared.
My goal for this blog is to provide a place to organize my inspirations and what I choose to share in a space that models the book in the world: the blog on the web. It could be picked up and opened by anyone. Read or ignored. Perhaps something here will be worth someone's while and they'll stay long enough to follow one of my inspirations to their own creative spark. In the magical world of the web, I can mention an inspiration and one click is all that separates a reader/viewer from seeing that image. Cross-references do not require tracking down another book, but only following the hyperlinked web that creates a single "document" online. The multiple layers and dimensions and tangents that a web space makes possible is perfect for the way that my mind works, how the physical body encounters stimuli and sparks the beginning of the creative process, a process that is rarely linear.
And so, my physical journal / experience meets the world / collective via the nonlinear / hyperlinked / multilayered Internet.
Somewhere, I broke through some mental barrier and I feel much braver and confident to try things. This doesn't mean I may be eager to show what I create online, but I am already heartened by the amount of art that is shared online. And that art is often very personal, not perfect, but full of meaning and significance. The presence of that work on the web is another influence on my growing confidence.
Recently, I found myself in the art section of Barnes & Nobel and I left with a copy of 1000 Journals Project by Someguy and Kevin Kelly. The book is an amazing glimpse into an ambitious project to connect the journal writings of hundreds and thousands of people. Basically, 1000 blank journals were given graphically appealing covers and an explanation of their purpose was written on or in them. They were sent randomly to individuals around the country, continent, world, with the simple instruction to use the journal as they pleased, and then to pass it along to someone else, by any means necessary. For some, this meant mailing them to other people. Others simply passed the journals to strangers on the street. Some laid the journal down on tables, benches, subway cars, to wait for the next person to pick them up, read the instructions and keep the book rolling.
What the project developers did not expect was how this experiment with collective creativity would grow into the virtual world online. Book-finders began to share their contributions or findings within the journals by scanning the pages and sending the images to the originators, who then compiled and shared them with the rest of the world via the web. Journal meets world. More about this project can be found here: http://www.1000journals.com/
That initial project is still underway, as long as any of the original 1000 books are still floating around. Recognizing that so many individuals were inspired and intrigued by the concept, they offered a second experiment: the 1001 journal project. This 1001st journal is the online community of journalists, diarists, memoir writers, visual journalists, and reflective artists who choose to continue the collective creativity humming by willing sharing their journals online. This continuation of the initial project can be found here: http://1001journals.com/
I've registered as a member of the 1001 community, but have not yet shared anything personal. I'm still working on the first pages of my first visual journal. But already I feel a sense of release and accomplishment. It is nice to have something to look forward to working on for an extended time. And this visual journal is something that will define itself over time.
Perhaps I will begin a second one with the express purpose of documenting family history and photography. It may take the form of a mixed media collage book. But right now, I'm most invested in the creation of a deeply personal book that combines words, images, colors, and mixed media to express my experience of life. There will be things that I feel confident sharing. And some things that will remain in the book, on my table, unshared.
My goal for this blog is to provide a place to organize my inspirations and what I choose to share in a space that models the book in the world: the blog on the web. It could be picked up and opened by anyone. Read or ignored. Perhaps something here will be worth someone's while and they'll stay long enough to follow one of my inspirations to their own creative spark. In the magical world of the web, I can mention an inspiration and one click is all that separates a reader/viewer from seeing that image. Cross-references do not require tracking down another book, but only following the hyperlinked web that creates a single "document" online. The multiple layers and dimensions and tangents that a web space makes possible is perfect for the way that my mind works, how the physical body encounters stimuli and sparks the beginning of the creative process, a process that is rarely linear.
And so, my physical journal / experience meets the world / collective via the nonlinear / hyperlinked / multilayered Internet.
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