Layers

As with most of my pages, this page is the result of many layers being built up over time. It began with watercolor pencil, and over several months I slowly added more and more layers of various media and techniques. The final layer was acrylic paint.

The theme of this page did not come for a while. I never have a preconceived notion about how I want a page to turn out. It's really about the process of working in the journal, building layers, and adding meaning when it seems fit. The theme of Memory came after I began to think about what my art is all about. The more I thought about it, the more I saw the build up of layers, the collage, the transparencies, and overlapping forms as similar to the way I mentally see thoughts and memories. I experience memories and thoughts in an "all-at-once" fashion. Words, images, colors, events, names, faces, and such come at me simultaneously. I rarely remember things like a film running through my mind.

So this piece has physical layers and psychological layers as well.

The Journal Fodder Junkies Strike Again

Recently we had the pleasure of providing a week long workshop to a group of teachers at the Content Teaching Academy on the campus of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. For most of the week we worked with a group of 12 individuals. Most were art educators, but we also had one music teacher, one math teacher, and one college administrator. But on two occasions during the week, we presented to two other groups - a group of English teachers and a group of Elementary teachers.

The week was a resounding success, and we believe that we have turned a few more people into Journal Fodder Junkies. It was nice working with a single group for most of the week where we shared techniques, strategies, and ideas. Most people seemed to really just enjoy the time to work and to be creative. For a lot of people, there seems to never be enough time to do such important work.

Increasingly we seem to be getting people interested in what we do, so we are increasingly providing workshops, seminars, and presentations to groups of teachers and artists a like. We're even working on a book, and hopefully soon we will be shopping it around to publishers.