moving forward – Quixotic Mama

i just finished journal number 14 and am cracking open journal 15.

when i lived in a housing co-op, years ago, i found an 8X11 art journal in the free store. i took it and started using it in an art class i was taking at uw.
then in 2016, i did inktober for the first time and got in the habit of inking daily.
now i have a crate full of words & images that have spilled out of me. explorations of all the shadows inside me.
art journaling is now a total way of life.

here are some pages of finger painting as i finished up journal #14…

i drift on the air
lost in my thoughts
feeling
the air move
through me
around me
away
from me
my thoughts
escaping
me.

are we just bundles
of cells
hurtling through space
on some rock
whose movements
are all do to an attraction
to a ball of gas?
or is there
more….

crisis of faith. right? who’s with me? but if i don’t believe in something greater than myself…what then? it doesn’t help that i have at least two nihilistic little anarchists running around my house declaring there is no point to it all.

fuck a duck.

i am playing around with ink on canvas as i feel my scorpio’s need to keep on growing & transforming. i have a huge (like 3′ X 4′?) sized canvas i want to do a mural on. but first i am practicing on some canvases i have been hauling around with for almost 20 years.

also, i am going to write one (or two) more pages of moses jones before putting her away. i don’t know if she is done or not, but i want to focus on other projects so i am bringing her to a stopping point so i can move on.

there are a number of projects always whirling around in my brain. i think i need to just throw a dart, pin one down, and get busy.

last year i thought it was a bad thing
to have a hair trigger
on the drawbridge
to my heart
this year i am looking at it differently
i am trusting myself
to know
when
& when not
to pull the lever that will send you
sailing
away.

this inking was made last night in an effort to use spilled ink… i do like to try to keep my accidents happy.

“eve”
up top: “drawbridge”
9X12 inking on watercolor paper
$45 plust $5 shipping

these pieces are from a year ago
many art journal pages
lamenting my lonely heart
yet i somehow survived
& i will keep on
keeping on
from one valentine’s day
to the next.

up top: “song sung blue”
bottom left: “chances”
bottom right: “fear of success”

9X12 inking on watercolor paper
$45 plus $5 for shipping & handling

so most of my art journal is about struggle
growth
change
moving forward
transformation
it is something i obviously feel strongly about
believing
if you are unhappy
you need to either accept
or change
and i am just not that good at accepting
the unacceptable
so i struggle
forward (on good days)
backwards (on bad days)
& sometimes i’m just moving in circles…

but change is good
so here is what i am going to try now. instead of finishing and posting my art journal pages, i will be posting finished versions of said pages which will be for sale. i am still art journaling like mad…i just have stopped inking/finishing the pages in my journal. instead, i use them as ways to get those demons moving about and then i use them again to make finished pieces of art. so now my art journal is looking more like this:

maybe i’m trying to conserve ink? maybe i’m just unmotivated? maybe i’ve inked so much that i no longer need to ink the roughs? like i kinda know what i’m doing?
but fret not! i will continue posting finished pieces with random thoughts.

“for this moment” 9X12 ink on watercolor paper…$45

wordpress just let me know it’s my eight year anniversary
whoa
how my art
my writing
& my way of viewing myself
the world
& relationships
has changed in eight years…
maybe not anything earth shattering
but
everything
has gotten a bit more proportional at least

this is a character from a story i played around with eight years ago in an art class. a story i still hope to finish developing one day.
eight years ago i was about to give birth to my fourth & final child. i was in an awful & emotionally abusive relationship with the dad. eight years ago i was attending art classes at uw and had just spawned moses jones. eight years ago i was in a lot of pain.
i somehow survived.
now i love & adore my four little monsters even when they are driving me mad. i no longer go to the dark dark places i went to back then–or at least i can still see the light when the dark decends. i can successfully ward off the wooings of the dad (who just this past weekend tried his hand at seducing me again.) i can suffer through the loneliness knowing i am who i am & am not going to accept anything less. i am working on my third publication. i am (slowly) selling art. i am working on a novel while editing two other books i wrote years ago to see if they are publishable….
and! i have my madness manor & my breathtaking view of the hills around me. i have a home–in more sense than one.
i have found my home.

Tag: moving forward

14 journals in 7 years

air

trying new things

spilled ink

change is good.

eight years…