Thoughts on Art Journaling

A lot of the time, people think that I always know what I'm doing when it comes to art making, that I can sit down and immediately create something that I am happy with. With twenty plus years of experience and knowledge of my art supplies (what they do and don't do, YES, in that department, I damn well know what my tools will (or won't) do. Do I know what I'm going to do when I start a page? Not always. Do I know how a page will reveal itself? Rarely. I push. I pull. I coax. I ask a lot of questions. I don't give up. I think but don't over think. I don't stress about the art, ever. Some instructors will tell you not to think. I don't like that. I want thoughtful pages that reflect me. 

Is it always about happy, contented art pages? No. Sometimes it's about pages that make you squirm, cry or scream. It's about getting things out and onto the page. It's about spilling, pasting, painting, making marks and remaking. It's about the process. 

It's about dating our pages (or inside covers) and moving on when we've pushed as far as we can go. It's about filling and learning and making and spilling and being in the moment. It's about wanting to learn new skills, techniques, ideas and ways of expressing ourselves. It's about pushing ourselves and pulling out things we hadn't thought of before. It's a struggle but it's a healthy, productive one that rewards us in pages that our uniquely our own even when we use the same mediums and materials as many others do. It's about creating ourselves over and over again onto the page.

It's repeatedly starting over again with every new blank page. It's about opportunity, invention, re-invention and experimentation. It's about the journey that we take and make through our own unique experiences of being humans and artists.