Symbolizing

Well, folks, it's been awhile. Since June 18th. Sorry about that! I thought I'd update my art blog a little bit, since I had a great time sharing some artsy-craftsy fun with the ladies at the Mission Peak Women's Campout this past weekend. I had decided to bring up a bunch of supplies to donate/share, partly because I wanted to use them myself and also because I know that outside, in the woods, where there are no jobs/husbands/kids/etc., people are more likely to take time out to indulge in some creativity. Oh, and we did! I had just received my second "cut book" from Anahata Katkin, Spare Parts, vol. 2, so I was totally excited to use her incredible images, as well as find some inspiration from the images of her own personal work. And really, it was so neat to be with women who were creating, to just allow ourselves to let go of that inner critic voice and just have fun with paints and stamps and paper.

I'll post pictures of the two pieces I did while I was there, I haven't photographed them yet. Besides those two, I also worked a bit in my journal and played with my markers and Caran d'ache Neocolor watercolor crayons. I've been really into Anahata Katkin's work lately, looking at her photo sets from the Symbolic Icons workshop (oh, how I wish I could have afforded to go!) and thinking about my own symbolic alphabet--what icons, colors, patterns, compositions, do I use often? My friend Keri, from school, also picked up a little supply box by Joseph Cornell, which contained a little book of ideas and inspiration, papers, and clip art by him. Very cool. One of the exercises in his book is to write a list of words which are, basically, important to you, and try to match them up with images. For example, "freedom" could be portrayed by a bird, "metamorphosis" with a butterfly, etc. All of that fits in very well with Anahata's ideas of symbolic alphabets. I'll post pics when I actually finish something!