A Delve into Altered Art

When I first started art journaling another factor that kept me shy of really starting was the fact that I have a very difficult time delving deep inside to pull out the stuff I've worked on years of healing and getting beyond. My childhood for the most part was good but I faced many a challenge through the years. When I started reading about altered art I decided why not use that as a way to start, I suppose dig, into things I don't normally think of. I decided to title my first attempt at altered art "Fragmented". Why that title? Because when I look back on my childhood, on the things I've faced and experienced I see a lot of fragments of who I was, who I am and who I want to be. I often describe myself as "layered" and that's because I truly am layered. There are layers to me no one's ever seen and there are layers everyone has. There are also layers that certain people and ONLY those certain people have seen as well. I'm layered. I'm complex. I'm full of contradictions. I'm full of dreams. I'm full of imagination and mystery. Some parts of me are so easy to understand while other parts...other parts no one sees, knows or understands. I'm layered with a capital "L".

It wasn't until I delved into the concepts, the ideas of altered art that I found myself able to express well some of that, the hidden layers, and perhaps that's why I stalled again because delving into hidden layers and exploring them in art is not as easy as you all may think. Oh no it takes time and patience and a willingness TO want to tackle it all and for me that's a little difficult. Why? Well you see I'm one of those people who keeps a lot hidden, and I do mean A LOT! I don't share a lot with others and those I do share stuff with have to be pretty damned close to me and have to have earned my trust. You won't get to the inner me by simply saying hi or hanging around me. No you have to work for it because well that's just me.

When I tackled this stuff, the inner me stuff, it didn't last long and now I'm finally getting back to it. I've shared pages from this particular altered book at 1001 Journals but no where else. If you read the passages on the pages, which I apologize may not be the easiest due to this being a digital photograph, then you can probably see the underlying purpose of this particular altered book. This one is one I like but that will take no doubt countless years to complete or progress in. Still I've done a little bit of work in it so that's a good thing :)

Love is a Funny Thing

You know there's all kinds of love out there: love between friends, love between family, love between two people...there's true love and puppy love and even love at first sight. It's an interesting thing and something I sometimes think about. I have loved, love and been loved in return but I've never really been IN love. I've never found that "special someone". I was engaged once but it was more a friendship love than anything to me. I've wondered sometimes if I may have at one point met that "special someone" and due to circumstances or other factors never pursued it. I'll never really know if that's the case or not. All I know is I'm fine with not being "in love" with another.

Years ago I made that decision to stay single, never marry. When I was younger my dream was to get married and have two kids, you know the typical girl and boy both relatively close in age so hey could grow up together and always have each other, always be close, always be friends. I had envisioned some handsome prince would come along and sweep me off my feet. You know that fairy tale belief that each and everyone has a significant other, a soul mate out there longing to become as one. I'm not really sure what my thoughts are on the soul mate thing now. All I know is I'm happy being me, being single and doing my own thing. Weird though because sometimes I think of what will be left after I'm gone from this life. I love to write stories, journal, draw, make scrapbooks and tons of other things. I love to collect glass figurines of dragons and wolves. I love to travel around the world and collect key chains and postcard from every place I've been but in the end after I'm gone who will get all that stuff and really is it that much of a concern? There's really no one to pass stuff onto that will "carry on my legacy" so to speak and that does bother me at times, but again it's the choice I have made to not marry, not have children so really why does it matter?

Still I love to watch those old sappy romantic movies, get all excited when I see the stars meet one another and fall in love, cry eons of tears when the leading characters lose one another and find each other again. I guess I'm one of those old romantics at art. While in my mind I've decided, made the choice to remain single in my heart I love to see those romantic movies have a happy ending, so yeah guess I'm a romantic sap.

I just wonder though what draws one to another? What makes someone meet another and say "wow they're the one for me?"

Guess I'll never know the true answer to that question but it's fun to contemplate at times. Guess it comes down to just one true fact: love is mysterious and love is a truly funny thing...

Life is...meaningful

Buckingham Fountain Walkway
Originally uploaded by Khonsus

Seriously it is. I know it is. I know this, yet I still have moments in time where I wonder, where I think about what kind of life I actually lead. Sometimes I feel like my life is...mundane, not exciting...
Sometimes I wonder if there's more, so much more to life then spending hours on a computer reading through e-mails and blogs. I look at my life sometimes and see that it's extremely uneventful, but seriously? Truly that is a big lie, a huge lie and why is that? Because of my job, because of my life and my adventures (or misadventures?)

I sometimes will ask if my life should be more exciting, more lively, more... I don't know eventful. Most people who know me, know what I do for a living will tell me to hush because what I do on a daily basis is so very important that my life is anything but meaningless.

They'll tell me the job I do, the things I do are very important. What do I do exactly? I work with troubled teens. I work with kids who have been diagnosed with disorders such as ADHD and ODD. I work with kids who have emotional issues, kids who have problems with their parents, kids who run the streets. I work with those kids that the criminal justice system or children and youth decide need placed somewhere.

So really my life is far from meaningless...so why do I get into these moods where I feel like my life is boring? Why do I get in those moods where I ask myself just what the hell my life really is about? I don't know why it happens, but it does. It's just...

I don't know. All I do know is I just spent the better part of an hour trying to analyze and examine why it is I feel this way sometimes and it was so disruptive to my sleep/rest that I just had to log on and...ramble about it.

So now that I have I believe my headache has receded, but still I have those damned doubts that creep in. Those doubts I can't explain away, and I wonder why it is I have them. Why do I sometimes feel as if my life is...extremely boring? Why do I wonder if I'm living life or just...spending it all online or sitting around debating it all the time.

I guess it's a phase of life that creeps up every now and again. I wish I could explain why it happens, but all I really can do is try to talk through it or get through it until my morose mood passes.

Now for the picture...why did I choose this particular one? Because it can be looked at as sort of a path, a direction...I can stop where I did to take the photo and remain forever rooted to that spot, not continue on, not turn back...or I can get myself out of this aggravating mood and move onwards. What's beyond those sparkly bricks? In reality a museum, an aquarium, a planetarium and a beautiful view of Lake Michigan, so metaphorically do I remain where I shot that photograph and look around content to remain in that exact spot? Or do I pull myself out of that mood that seems to be stalling me?

I think there's a whole hell of a lot more that needs to be accomplished, a whole hell of a lot more beyond those pretty sparkling bricks, and I think it's time for me to haul my ass out of that damned spot and move onward already! :)

I do like this picture, took it randomly. It was unplanned, and I like it...
Funny how at the time I took it I merely wanted to capture the pretty sparkle to the bricks laid out before me. Never did I expect it to be a metaphor that would help pull my mind out of a morose mood and get back on track already!

In the words of a man I've come to admire: Life's that way.

How Deep into the Murky Water Can You Go?

Have you ever had one of those days where you just feel like you're in a rut, and you can't seem to climb back out of it? It doesn't happen to me often, but it does happen and it's irritating. I just feel really...low, and I don't know why. Well I have a fair idea why but still...

I tried writing. I tried reading. I've even tried to take a nap or two but still it doesn't seem to be lightening my mood any. I hate when that happens. I feel like I'm in this vat of murky water kicking and treading trying to keep my head above the surface when something is consistently pulling me downwards. Why does that happen?

I know in a few days the mood will lift, but I so hate it when it does appear. Hopefully chatting about it will make it go away...or at least distract my mind from it enough that I will be able to move beyond...one only hopes that'll work.

Yeah maybe...we shall see.

Little Facets of Life

Colorful Ascent
Originally uploaded by Khonsus

Everybody has little facets of life. Slivers of their lives that they like to share, slivers of their lives they want to share and slivers they'd rather bury beneath a heaping mound of freshly dug dirt. Some slivers will be buried momentarily and others will remain forever hidden. My issue, my problem...

My balance maybe?

Is in what of those multitude of facets of my own life I'd like to share or reveal, and what slivers do I want kept buried. It's a fine interesting line to walk, a debate sure to go on for years to come: what to share, what not to share and what will the end result be as each tiny sliver is unveiled.

Really this is one of my sole purposes, sole reasons for wanting to start a blog in the first place and also seems to create quite the barrier at times. It's a realm I want to explore further and one that will require years of patience to pursue.

Which facets should I start with and which ones I dare to choose equal out hopefully to something worth writing about. Journaling is hard for me. Writing? Now that that's easier...when I write stories I only include snippets of things about me. It's not as intimidating as writing about myself...

Weird how that works out, strange indeed and if I can stop dwelling on how much better everyone else's blogs and artworks are then perhaps I can draw some more deeper enjoyment of my own, so without further ado I shall attempt to unveil and turn over a new leaf again.

Who knows it may lead somewhere, it may lead no where but isn't that part of the journey anyway?

Yeah I think so. :)