Monthly Archives: August 2016

Breath Is A Metaphor For Spirit In The Migrations Journal

Onwards, deeper inside The Migrations journal, chapter 1, entitled Vinyasa.

IMG_1736

In yoga, a vinyasa is a coordinated set of movements, usually linked by the breath. In my journal breathing is a metaphor for spirit or life-force, for when we give up the breath that is when we die.

IMG_1731 IMG_1732 IMG_1734 IMG_1733 Milosz was Catholic, as was I once upon a time, and in these verses he explores the rituals and symbols of communal worship. I miss that feeling of union, but much rather be alone and true than fake it.

Why We Are All Immigrants, More Pages from Migrations Journal

Three more double page spreads from inside The Migrations journal, chapter 1.

Reflecting on Milosz’s verses as a metaphor for migration the first layer of meaning strikes a universal cord. Whether we are firmly rooted in our birthplace or have been cast by destiny or choice into the role of wanderer, who hasn’t felt adrift sometime?

IMG_1724

IMG_1727

Who hasn’t lacked for connection, felt the agonizing lack of trust, of the disintegration of stability that arrives with religious disillusion? All are forms of being adrift.

IMG_1730

IMG_1729

I love the small pop up here. It was a small bit of copper-bling paper found in the pile of scraps littering the printmaking studio. Kinda kitsch so why not use it as an extra challenge? Then that wonderful green patina from where the water based inks bled through the coating…real copper! What a rich reward for the small risk.

Migrations: Creating Challenges Inside a Sketchbook or Journal

These four pages in the Migrations journal illustrate how using a variety of pop ups and paper colors or textures inside a standard sketchbook presents the artist with interesting visual and conceptual challenges. In these two page spreads I continued to use repetition of verses and images to move Czeslaw Milosz’s text and my drawings along even as I drew from memories and source photos I’d taken as visual prompts for this journal.IMG_1719

IMG_1718I really liked the see-saw effect of this spread.

IMG_1720I’d sketched commuters for this book and taken pictures of my husband and me walking, and of him driving while we traveled. I  felt that images of migration from one place to another would serve as a metaphor for the connections between how our consciousness/ soul travels in and out of our liminal states…like during contemplation, dreaming, or even drawing. Why do we travel like that? Is it ever possible to really know our destination? A place, a truth, or another.

IMG_1722

Migrations Journal: A Story Book of How We Got Here

The Migrations Journal is divided into three chapters. Here are a few more pages from the first chapter, meditating on a poem that I’ve carried with me for nearly 20 years.  I love Milosz’s poem, Consciousness. All the centuries of dualistic mind-body contradiction rebuked by a simple declaration “I–consciousness– originate in skin.” It’s practically tantric!

IMG_1704 IMG_1710

IMG_1713

IMG_1714

As you can see, the journal has many pop up pages that open to reveal more quotes. Sometimes they move the narrative along, other times skip forwards or repeat a verse, like a kind of poetic aphasia. It’s not just about wanting to embed the verse, or remember it. Rather that the desire to touch, to connect, is one that we often fail at as we migrate between between mythos and cultures.

IMG_1706

IMG_1707

IMG_1716

 

Look Inside My Mixed Media Journal Migrations

I’m never too far from a sketchbook or journal. Unless I’m crafting a handmade book. Here is an art journal that’s a bit of a hybrid. It’s organized into chapters, but the imagery inside each chapter follows my stream of consciousness and focus. Just like a regular sketchbook. Over the next couple of weeks I’ll post a few pictures of the journal for you. It’s a little bit like a pop up in that it opens up in many pages.

13924825_1158066040919011_2414179609579036854_n

Chapter 1: Vinyasa. I practice yoga and as I meditated on the idea of migration thought that the layering of image (body) and poetry (breath, spirit) and the folding/unfolding of pages could be an analogy to the flowing movement of the body and breath in a yoga sequence. I also repeat poetry lines and images like a vinyasa.

13887124_1158066044252344_277457481265443573_n

The poem I meditate on in Chapter 1 is by Polish writer, Czeslaw Milosz. Actually, his poem Consciousness has influenced me for more than 20 years!