So, What Do You Call It?


Art journal. Scrapbook. Catch All. Diary. Glue Book. Books. Happy Place. Why are we obsessed with naming and labeling things? Does everything have to fit into little compartments with clearly defined labels stuck to it? Does it matter? What do you call your book where you cut and paste things into? An inquiring reader wants to know. 

I call my books my books or my art journals. "I'm going to work in my books." You either get it or you don't. To me, it's past art making. It's definitely on a whole different level than crafting (crafting to me means finding something to do to fill your time. This doesn't fill my time, it fills ME.) It's my place of sanctuary, my place to process and ruminate. It's my Church, my Temple, my forest, my quiet place all rolled into one.

Who am I doing it for? For me, honestly. It's my one place where I can be selfish in a healthy way. I make my books for me. Sure, I hope that my son will enjoy them but they're for me and they're for me RIGHT NOW. It's what keeps me happy, sane and present all at once.  

What do you call what you do? Inquiring minds want to know.

Comments

HappyDayArt! said…
I call myself a maker because I love to make all kinds of things!
Sandy said…
I do a lot of different things. My art journal is just that, an art journal. I usually say I need some me time which is rare lately.
Unknown said…
It's an art or visual journal. I've always called my journals this and I don't think that's going to change. Funny enough I wrote a post today touching upon this whole nonsense of labeling personal expression.
Kelly Kilmer said…
Schwitters called Collage Merz. It's when folks get hung up on labels and categorizing that I start to go bonkers. Call it whatever and be done with it!
Unknown said…
My biggest issue right now is the labeling of those who use pre made things as being less authentic. While I love making my own ephemera, I don't think there's anything wrong with using things you just think are pretty. It's almost like people who are critical of pop music and think they appreciate music more because they listen to something not considered main stream.
Anne with an e said…
I admit I am one of those people that is obsessed with having things named & labelled.. I find it comforting, & helps me make sense of the world. Actually, a lot of my notebooks are filled with that process of naming & labelling. I would never go to somebody else & try to impose my own labels on them however..

lol Anyway, to answer your question: my "official" title for my notebooks that I use when I am trying to explain them is that they are "hybrid visual journals".. since their primary purpose is journaling & recording.. and they very visual with some pages looking like scrapbook pages, or art journal pages or sketchbook pages.

Usually though I just call them my notebooks. On the first page of each one it just says "Anne's Notebook, Vol #.."

lol Hope you don't mind my "War & Peace" length comment :)
Brian Kasstle said…
I am doing private study with someone I know well in art journaling/art basics. Today they called "our style" of art journaling an intimist.

here is the dictionary definition:


adjective
1.
of or pertaining to the recording of intimate personal and psychological experiences as a basis for art, literature, etc.: an intimist novel.
noun
2.
an intimist painter, writer,

I prefer to think of what I do as art journaling or visual journaling.
Well, I used to call it " cheaper than therapy" but now that my washi tape and pens collection has exceeded seven drawers...hahahaha. Seriously, I don't need a label or name, I just need to know it's mine and I LOVE it like nothing else that's mine. It is me. It truly is my Release, my need for expression, my creative outlet, my peace, my meditation, my being-in-the-present moment.
Kelly Kilmer said…
@Brian I've never heard our art form called that. I know it relates to some artists of the early 1900's but have never heard anyone call our work that.
Kelly Kilmer said…
@Anne lol no worries. I am more concerned with folks who are so intent in labeling what they are doing that it is preventing them from actually creating.
Lisa Sonora said…
Great question, Kelly.

I have always simply called them my journals -- even though they are visual.

And then I started calling them sketchbooks, because I've always worked in blank (unlined paper please!!) artist sketchbooks. Even though they have tons of writing.

As a teacher and writer, I have always struggled with what to call them - because I think the terms are important when trying to transmit info to others.

I never think of them as "art journals" because they are for my and my process only and I only share them for the sake of teaching...

art to me, means product - and I need some place to work free of product pressures.

anyway...very good food for thought.

ps. I was JUST thinking about you...time for a class!
Barbara Hagerty said…
I just say I'm going to work in my book, which is pretty funny, actually, since it might imply that there's only one
Caatje said…
My journal is simply my journal (although each book is given it's own name, usually a very obvious one, like right now I'm working in The White Book). I rarely use the term art journal for my journal books, except to make clear that it's more than just a written journal. I have one journal going at a time and that's it.

However I do have a lot of other books I work in. Those I call sketchbooks and/or ideabooks or playbooks, or whatever else one can do in books. I don't consider those journals.

My journal is a distinct thing. It's the account of my life as it unfolds from day to day, like a diary. A book of days.

The other books are simply for art making in every form I like. I have more than one because I like to have different sizes, papers and shapes to work in.

It's nice to see how different people have different approaches to this. And in the end all that matters is what works for you, right?
An interesting story.... and Post!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and process...so Creative!!!!
Desert Mermaid said…
My journal. Also, 'my books'. I agree -- way beyond 'filling time'. They're the same as breathing for me, always have been -- as in 'not optional'. If I don't work in my book for a day or two, I'm uncentered in a BIG way. It's where I assimilate everything. It's HOW I assimilate - everything. The books are for me, now, but I consider them my legacy for my sons. When I was a little girl, I called them my diaries, because that's what was printed on the cover of the little red book with the lock on it that I was using then. But as I got older, and realizing that I always wrote SO MUCH, I switched to spiral notebooks (in my teens and early 20s). I know I've said this to you before, Kelly, that for me it's all about the words as priority -- the visual things I do are just a way of relaxing my muse (& my writing hand). But it's the actual writing that is my core, and why I keep a journal.
Desert Mermaid said…
@Jazmin -- if it's what I want/feel for my journal, I don't give a rat's heinie the source - store, gutter, kitchen leftover! & I've tried for years the idea of using my own photos in my journals, but I can't stand the way a hard print looks/feels on a page, and I can't afford the ink to print them off digitally. So that impulse has pretty much abandoned me, too! The point is to capture/express what I need to capture/express; I forego any elitism about how I manage that! (lol)

@Brian -- intimist ... oh my god, I love that. I'm very introverted (I could fill 20 columns of comments with what I've read about what 'introverted' really means, as opposed to the labels it's acquired in this Reality TV culture ours has become) ... the only way I can make sense of my world, myself in it, others circling me, is through my journal. Intimist really describes the process, though doesn't 'name' my journals, quite, for me.

@Anne - 'my notebooks' -- that's fabulous! sounds friendly, kind of scientific too!

Susie said…
I'm honestly not so hung up on labels either, I just love to create and whatever I pick up in the day; my paint brush, my art journal, a canvas, or just sitting cutting images out of magazines, it's all about 'doing it' taking that time and calling it mine, for the good, because I love all of it, it also my vacation right in the comfort of my own home, it's my corner of the world, my comfort zone, my safe, haven, who doesn't need that kind of place???? I say a resounding YES to everything you shared here today. YES!!!!
J-Lin said…
I say"I am going to touch paper" as it is a very tactile thing that encompasses most things I do.
J-Lin said…
I say"I am going to touch paper" as it is a very tactile thing that encompasses most things I do.
Anne with an e said…
@Desert Mermaid thanks!
lol it's funny that you said it sounds it scientific cuz several of my notebooks include stuff like lists of butterfly species, phyllotactic patterns & all kinds of fun nerdy stuff >.<

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