Practice, practice, practice...

Okay so like I said in previous posts I started working on art journals several years ago, mainly ones that belonged to other people. One day I decided why not create one for myself, a travel journal that I can take, put pictures in, items I find and that I can carry along with me when I do travel. My first attempt at my own personal art journal is this Chicago journal. I decided for my next two pages in the journal that since I spend a lot of time on the El (CTA trains) why not incorporate a map of the CTA system in the pages. The main line I travel is the O'Hare blue line.

I stay in a hotel fairly close to the airport and the nice thing about this particular hotel and this particular airport is that there's a 24 hour free shuttle bus that runs from the hotel to the airport about every 15 minutes. Also in what I call the "basement" of the airport is the entrance to the CTA blue line. O'Hare is the end of the line and it's very nice and convenient to take the El right out of the airport. Due to this particular set up you can enter the airport and head straight downstairs. Two trains pull in and out of there throughout the day and boarding the CTA is way cheaper than a cab, even though the trip from O'Hare TO downtown Chicago is approximately 45 minutes. It's the cheapest and easiest way to travel to the city, which makes seeing a very busy city relatively nice and simple. :)

When I first started this particular journal I was leery about experimenting. I didn't want to mess anything up, so I stuck with using my scanner and gluing what I scanned into the journal pages. As I progressed, learned some new techniques, bought more magazines on art journaling and continued to work on art journals from the 1001 Journals community I found myself daring to delve into more complex things...I drew a CTA train, painted some pages and fiddled around with ways to make the journal more appealing, more exciting and more interesting. After working on this initial first trip I decided to label each year I spent in Chicago. I used one word (or two) to basically describe in a nut shell how the trip was and I used some water colors and paints to express it. The more I worked on the early bits of this journal and the more I experimented the neater and more interesting each entry became for me.

Now I tend to do a lot of drawing and journaling in this particular journal but I have also started working on my own sketch book and my own personal art journal that delves more into my feelings, emotions and such. The more I learn about art, painting and sketching the braver I become in daring to try new things.

What's actually starting to happen? When my writing muse is slow I find myself picking up an art journal and going to town with it. Some of the entries turn out amazing while others not so much but each new "project" I undertake seems to be better than the previous one and I'm quite satisfied that I seem to be improving and expanding.

Photography

Another creative avenue for me is photography. I love to take pictures. I take tons when I go on trips and like to take my camera with me when I drive into town on Fridays. Sometimes I'll use it and sometimes I won't. It's no big deal for me to take over 200 pictures on any given vacation. I just love to take pictures...

Of course if you take note of the above picture it's rather old, has that old brownish tinge to it and actually has rounded edges, but when I scanned it I squared it off. Why did I add this particular picture to this particular entry? Because it's the FIRST picture I ever took on my very own. Way back when I was oh probably 10 maybe? I got a camera for Christmas, one of those old Kodak cameras with the click thingy to prep it for the next photo and the attachable flash. Yeah it might not have been a whole lot and by modern standards is probably called "antique" now, but I loved that old camera.

So what is this a picture of you ask? Well snow of course and somehow a slip of curtain got into that photograph too. I can honestly say they don't make curtains like that anymore! : )

This picture was taken at my grandmother's old house. I loved that old house. It was a big white house that sat on a corner and had a wrap around porch and all. My grandparents had one of those old coal stoves in the basement that they'd load for heat and the house had the neatest most beautiful cherry bannisters. I loved that old house and miss it dearly. It still stands today but sits empty and has been "modernized". It has little of the former glory it had back then.

Anyways this photo was taken in what we always coined "the back room" or to put a better name to the room we would simply refer to it as "the piano room". In it was contained two or three pianos. One was a player piano and my cousin and I used to go back, turn it on and act like we could actually play it! the carpet in the room was an ugly off orange color but that room held so much memory in it and due to that and where this photo was taken from I cherish this particular photograph.

I remember that view from when I was a kid. We used to (my brother and I) walk on the brick wall you can sort of see the outline of in the snow. My grandfather would get so mad at us for doing that he'd yell at us but we continued to walk that wall because we just thought it so neat. Off to the left of the photo and out of site of the camera was an old grape harbor. Oh the memories this simple photo dredges up...brings a bright smile to my face every time as I recall all the good times we had and shared in that house.

Both grandparents that had at one time lived there have now passed on. I miss them both, especially my grandmother, and I miss that old house. I can still hear myself giggling as I envision running up those steps my hand dragging across the smooth bannister as I ran. I can still recall walking down those steps and admiring the child-like pictures she had hung along the wall of cats and dogs and such. I would have loved to have those particular pictures but they are now forever lost. Still I can remember staring at them and into them imagining what those animals would be like. I can still recall how the lights of the local traffic would catch on the floor to ceiling windows in the living room and cast an eerie glow about the room.

I still remember the family gatherings we had there, the times my brother and I would run up and down those steps, the times we'd play for endless hours in that old back room, and I will forever recall my cousin and I sitting perched just so on the bench of that old player piano and giggle to our hearts content as we cranked it on and pretended to play the instrument with our own hands.

The memories that photograph stirs up are ones I will forever cherish. They sometimes bring tears to my eyes and while one can tell by looking at it how much of a novice I was to photography back then I'm so glad I took that simple little picture and have it as a constant reminder of a past too quickly forgotten, a time gone by too abruptly and of a little girl giggling with her very first camera clutched so tightly in her hands as she aimed it out that window and snapped her very first shot...

Closing the Door

As I mentioned in the previous post this scrapbook started out as a basic idea, a thought, a way to display ALL of my convention pictures so that they could all be seen. When I started it I wasn't sure what would come of it and soon the scrapbook became a way to close the door on a friendship that ended abruptly. I decided to scrap the different trips her and I took together and that led naturally into scrapping all the conventions we attended together.

As I mentioned before I didn't really go to conventions (well other than one X Files convention) until her and I started traveling to them together. Now I travel either alone or with my best friend to conventions.

This scrapbook was my closure for a broken friendship. If you look at the two pages above you'll notice that the very first picture is blurry and out of focus. We're also both smiling in it and how ironic I'm wearing a Xena shirt seeing as those are the only sci fi cons her and I attended together. I chose that first picture because it's out of focus. I felt it accurately represented the fading friendship we now had. We had been friends until a bad trip to New York in 2003. The first picture shows an image of our very first convention together and is blurry, which in my mind kind of represented the way things were. Under it I put that quote because with her I did laugh often and much and so did she, so I felt it appropriate.

The very next picture is a close up of her and I together. This ironically was one of the last pictures to be taken of us, and I selected it because it sort of embodies the way our friendship was I suppose. We were good friends and had a blast at the conventions and I just felt that pic appropriate.

The next page has the photo that's half blurry and dark. It's a picture of us posing with some friends we hung out with at every convention. Again the selection of that photo was totally and completely planned. It kind of shows the finality of our friendship. It was fun while it lasted but even then was fading into nothingness to be forgotten and filed away with all other memories from the past.

The last picture is one of my favorites of Angie. She's posing with Hudson Leick one of the actresses that her and I absolutely loved going to conventions to see. We had a lot of memories that involved Hudson and us going to see her and meet her after she got off stage. They were all good memories and I just loved that photo so I felt it appropriate to use.

If you notice to the side of that last picture is a an envelope tucked away. The envelope in fact contains a letter I wrote to Angie but she never saw it. This is my official closure letter telling her what I learned from her, telling her how I felt about the abrupt way she dismissed our lengthy friendship and wishing her the best of luck in the future. I don't really recall everything that's written in that letter, but I felt it an appropriate way to say goodbye.

The words on the page talk of how some people enter our lives for a purpose, some we recall, some we forget, some we'll always remember and she was one of those such people. It's kind of a finality on my part to her, the way to officially close the door and move onward with my life.

There is more to this scrapbook that I intend to post, but it will take some time. The first half of the scrapbook is the trips her and I took together, the second half? All the conventions we attended. The final page contains that quote about people coming into our lives for a purpose and serves as the final page for the entire album.

Overall I'm very pleased with how this scrapbook turned out and find myself looking at it more than I had ever expected. Scrapbooking, though I don't do it a lot, has become a sort of healing journey for me, a way to display images and voice thoughts, opinions etc on issues that have affected my life. I haven't done much scrapbooking lately but have several in progress. Each one is unique and contains personal aspects of my life. I find it enjoyable and relaxing to work on them though they do take a long time to complete. Still in the end I'm very happy I dared to take that wee step into scrapping and dove head first into trying something brand new.

Scrapbooking as a means to provide closure

So as I mentioned in the previous post my first scrapbook began a little oddly. I had no idea where I wanted to go with it or what I wanted to do with it. All I knew is that I had this sudden urge, or need, to just get right into it so without hesitation I picked up some supplies and started. The first page turned out to be titled "Life Lessons" and an idea formed in my head for where to take the journal after that. I had decided to use the scrapbook as a sort of final chapter in a friendship that had been lengthy but ended so abruptly it surprised and shocked me.

I had been friends with this girl for some time. It was with her I started traveling to conventions in the first place, which is why the scrapbook eventually headed that direction I suppose. I decided why not devote a scrapbook to her and to closing the door on a friendship that suddenly, abruptly came to an end. Low and behold that mode of thinking landed me smack dab into the "daring to attempt scrapping" department.

I had found a purpose for the scrapbook. It would serve as a way to gain closure, a way to move on, move forward...take what I learned from that friendship and apply it then move onwards. You know that quote about friends? Some people come into our lives for a reason, others for a season, others a lifetime...well apparently this girl was one of those "reason" people. She came into my life at a time when I needed something, stuck around for a while then just disappeared. I did learn some things from her like how to be more care free. How to become more outgoing. I learned a lot about tennis (way more than I ever expected) because she played it and loved it and I learned a few other things, but she wasn't meant to be in my life for more than a few years and when that time was up she vanished without a trace.

I've only seen her twice since she abruptly vanished with no explanation or reason as to why our friendship ended and each time I glanced at her and just went on about my business wondering briefly how someone could so abruptly dismiss a person they claimed to be closest to without a second thought or glance. Then I shrugged my shoulders and went on about my business. I'm glad I don't see her often because it's just aggravating to see her and how she acts now verses then...and to even recall how badly she treated me on our very last trip together just pisses me off thoroughly so I rarely dredge such memories up...but she was a part of my life and I felt it only right to put into scrapping words and such to show how she affected it and such.