Art Unraveled 2012

Art Unraveled is a little more than a month away, and we're excited to be teaching at this annual Phoenix, Arizona event for the second straight year. It's not too late to sign up, and it runs from July 30 - August 7, at the Embassy Suites Phoenix-Scottsdale. There are a lot of amazing classes to choose from, and we will be teaching two day-long classes as well as participating in several of the events. We hope to see you there.



Monday, July 30
Meet the Artists - 7-9pm
Come say, "Hi" at this kick-off for the week.

Wednesday, August 1

Personal Histories and Mythologies 9am - 4:30pm

We have all have our stories. As we deal with our present, we are consistently rewriting our pasts, whether romanticizing or demonizing ourselves. Like it or not, we are defined by the events that have transpired during our lives. This is a process we all engage in to face our uncertain futures. We continually edit the scripts and dialogues running through our heads to reinforce the myths and the stories we construct to define and articulate our lives.
 
What is your story? What is your history? What are the mysteries of your life? What are the stories that you have told yourself over and over to the point that you believe them and accept them?
This mixed-media workshop focuses on the personal and private use of the visual journal as a powerful tool for self-reflection and self-discovery. Learn to mix a variety of art techniques and media with personal ephemera and reflective writing to explore the stories that you tell about yourself and investigate the mysteries of your life. Bring images, memorabilia, and other ephemera that will help tell the story of YOU. Rose tinted glasses optional.

Thursday, August 2
Transitional Spaces - 9am - 4:30pm
Are you looking to transform your artwork or your visual journal from a static surface to a dynamic, interactive space? Are you looking for ways to create richly layered spaces within and between your pieces? This mixed-media workshop delves into creating this layered and nuanced interaction within and between works whether they are pages in a journal or stand alone pieces.

Discover ways to give your artistic endeavors an extra kick as you explore how to incorporate transitional spaces that bring surprise, interactivity, connection, and hybridity to your art. Learn about windows, doorways, pockets, secret passages, and more as you consider and reconsider how spaces and pages interact and create a dialogue. Make artwork that opens up, flips out, and unfolds into other realms.

Saturday, August 4
Shopping Extravaganza - 10am - 4pm
 We will be participating in the Shopping Extravaganza and will be selling artwork, prints, and copies of our books. We're hopping our new book will be out by that time.

"Top Artists Showdown" - 7-10pm

Random News

With wrapping up the school year and participating in the Western Loudoun Artists Studio Tour, it has been a busy couple of weeks, and it appears that my summer is going to stay just as busy. So, I wanted to share a random smattering of things today. I apologize for the mishmash of news and thoughts.

First, this summer is a big time of CHANGE for the Journal Fodder Junkies in at least one big way, and for those that have been following my change initiative, you may find this all a bit synchronous. Both Dave and I are changing jobs. Dave recently accepted a job at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. So, after three years in Boone, NC at Appalachian State University where we were a six and a half hour drive from each other, Dave will be moving to my wife’s home town, where he will be a mere 45 minutes away. Closer proximity means better collaboration, and hopefully more ideas, projects, and events that we can put out there.

As for me, after ten years of teaching high school art, I’ll be returning to the elementary level as I move to Tolbert Elementary School in Leesburg, VA. I taught elementary art for four years prior to teaching high school art. I am very excited for the change after feeling rather burnt out and stagnant teaching at the high school level. Actually, the move has been part of my recent busyness. Although my official last day was early last week, I spent the rest of the week packing up the classroom that I have been in for the last ten years, and moving the 40 or so boxes, bins, and pieces of art. I’ve also started organizing the new artroom, and I still have quite a lot to do. I’ll be spending most mornings next week trying to finish up.

 Sixteen years of teaching packed up in 40 boxes and bins.

 The last look at the classroom that was my "home" for 10 years.

Second, the Studio Tour was another success this year, and I had about 150 people come through my studio last weekend. I did a little better this year than last, and sold quite a few pieces and quite a few books. Events like the tour reinforce my commitment to my art and have me jazzed to make new pieces. I appreciate all those who stopped by to take a look, to buy some art or a book, and to talk about art. I am really in my element with these types of things, and again and again I had people tell me that they came to my studio because my art was very different than others on the tour. After seven years, the tour is definitely a big event for the artists of western Loudoun County, and I big heartfelt “Thank You” goes out to the folks who organize and promote the event.

My studio during the tour.

Third, I got a couple of wonderful surprises over the last couple of weeks. First was a beautiful handbound, mini journal from my wonderful friend Erin, aka Bean. I’ll share more about that in a later post. The second surprise came from Strathmore Artists Papers. I came home yesterday to find a box of new hardbound journals from the company. I didn’t even know they were launching a new line of art journals. Similar to their Visual Journals, the hardbound art journals come in a choice of fine art papers and include a 80 lbs. recycled drawing paper, 80 lbs. toned sketch paper (gray or tan), 140 lbs. watercolor paper, and 90 lbs. mixed media paper. They also come in three different sizes; 5.5” x 8.5”, 8.5” x 11”, and 11”x 14”. Because of the heavier paper, the journals contain fewer pages than traditional blank, hardbound sketchbooks, and they are a bit more expensive. I am looking forward to trying them out once I finish my current journal. The timing is interesting because, I was recently thinking about ordering a few new blank journals to have as I wrap up my current journal, but I held off buying any only to receive these wonderful journals. I haven’t seen them available yet at online retailers, but I’m certain that they’ll be coming soon.

Well that's about it for today. There's still more to catch up on and to post, but it will have to wait.

Teen Visual Journal Class

I am teaching a visual journal class June 18-22, 1pm-4pm, for teens (ages 12-18) at the Round Hill Arts Center in Round Hill, VA. It's not too late to sign up, and I am trying to pack the class. If it goes well, I'll offer more in the future, both for teens and adults - maybe even for the younger crowd as well.

And don't forget the Western Loudoun Artists Studio Tour this weekend from 10am-5pm both days. My studio is almost ready to receive visitors, and I am in a frenzy to complete some last minute artwork and wrap up all the odds and ends.

I'll continue postings for my Change Initiative and the JFJ Challenge after the tour.

Studio Tour

Come out this weekend for the Western Loudoun Artist Studio Tour. I'm on Stop #18 in Purcellville. I'll have mixed media paintings, art prints, and copies of The Journal Junkies Workshop for sale. Last year was a blast, and I am looking forward to this year. Still have a lot of odds and ends to finish up, but I'll be ready at 10 AM Saturday morning.

Hope to see you there.

A Present for My Readers

One month ago, I declared my resolve to change my life, to become more centered, to reconnect with myself, to be happy. I called this The Change Initiative, and I must say that it's going rather splendidly. I am finding my center. I am finding my calm, and I am finding my balance. Life is such a joy now, and I smile so much more. A lightness has entered me, and I am trying so hard to shine that light onto the world.

As part of that attempt, I have a present for you, dear reader. I'll get to that in a minute. Let me explain what has lead up to this point and to the above journal spread. Back in January, I was feeling an overwhelming need to change my life and to expand my reach. So, I envisioned creating an online workshop centered around the idea of change. A quick search of other online workshops showed me that there had to be a lot of content including pdfs, videos, live chats, and ongoing support. I began to piece together ideas and started to create some content. Well, life began to swing wildly out of control, and the online workshop never materialized (maybe in the future), but I still had a nice document that I had begun. So, I have finished up a 22 page document that walks the reader through the steps that I went through to create the above spread. I photographed a total of 15 steps and wrote up ideas and considerations for each step.

I want to make this short workshop in pdf form available to anyone who would like to have it - my present for all of the support.

Although I document the steps that I took in creating my change spread, I don't want readers to use it as a recipe to make my spread. As with all of my workshops and even with The Journal Junkies Workshop and Journal Fodder 365, I want people to bring their own ideas, techniques, and concepts to the work. I just supply a framework and a peek into how I work.


If you would like a free pdf of this Change workshop, please email me, and I will gladly send you the pdf. As an added bonus I will include a free download of my Change journal spread to the first 30 people who take advantage of this offer.

Please remember that these are for personal use only, and all copyrights apply. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without explicit, written permission. Under NO circumstances can any part be used for commercial purposes or redistributed in any fashion.



Here's to making positive CHANGE!

Mind: Projecting the Shadow

I have been enthralled with the Shadow as of late, and I devoured The Shadow Effect: Illuminating the Hidden Power of Your True Self by Deepak Chopra, Debbie Ford, and Marianne Williamson. The shadow is an idea that keeps resonating with me, and I am continuing the exploration of my shadow and beginning to understand when I am projecting.

I often sleep walk through life, unconscious of the many motives that drive me, and in this state the shadow thrives. I have stuffed down all those undesirable things and have denied their existence. I have covered over my anger, my fear, and my desires, and I have gone on with life as normal. Though buried in the unconscious, the shadow manifests in many ways in my everyday life, and it finds way to sabotage my peace of mind. I just need to pay attention to these moments so that I can begin to embrace and disarm the shadow. Only then can I find peace and bring a sense of wholeness to my life.

How do I know when I am projecting?

Projection is actually quite easy to spot, and I am amazed at how readily the shadow shows itself when you know what to look for. However, when I am not mindful, the shadow easily stays disguised, but I am learning to recognize its disguises.

I am projecting anytime my temper flairs for the littlest reason and I lash out. I am projecting when I get defensive and I make others wrong so that I can feel right. I am projecting when I blame someone else and feel that it’s “us vs. them”. I am projecting when I am repulsed and disgusted by others or when I feel good at another’s suffering.

It’s all too easy for me to see these reactions as justifiable - as merely reactions to bad situations or bad people. But this is how the shadow stays hidden. It cloaks itself in reasonableness. But these outbursts and gut reactions are indicators of my shadow lashing out and projecting my fears and my anxieties onto others. When I get angry and lash out at others, I am really angry at myself for certain failings and certain feelings. When I get defensive and see the world as “us vs. them” I am justifying behavior that is probably hypocritical. I seem to say, “It’s not me. I’m not that way. It’s them. It’s their fault.” But it IS really me. I AM really that way. When I am repulsed or disgusted by others, I am only projecting my own revulsion and disgust at myself. In all of these cases, I see something of myself in others - something about myself that I do not like, something that I am ashamed of, something that I fear about myself. These are the dark and negative aspects of my shadow.

The shadow’s projection, however, is not always negative. As Robert Johnson says in Owning Your Shadow, we bury a lot of gold in our shadow. We bury a lot of our strengths and a lot of our potential in our shadow afraid to be seen as bragging. We have learned it’s better to be humble, it’s better to dim our brightness then to shine. “Who does he think he is?” and “Don’t get too big for your britches!” are the sentiments of society that often echo in my head. So, I bury these strengths in my shadow afraid to shine, and whenever I am enthralled, inspired, and overwhelmingly drawn to another, I am projecting. Like the negative projection, these are times when I see something of myself in others, but it’s a much more positive. In The Shadow Effect, Debbie Ford says, “Whatever inspires you is an aspect of yourself.” If I am inspired by someone’s amazing creativity, then I see a glimmer of that creativity in myself even though I may vehemently deny and downplay my creativity. If I am drawn to someone who is spiritual and compassionate, those are qualities that I, too, possess even though I may feel myself to be cold and apathetic. If I am inspired by someone’s charm and charisma, I have these same aspects buried inside of me even though I may believe myself to be socially awkward. All of these qualities that attract me and inspire me are aspects of myself that I see in others. I may need to coax them out of my shadow. I may need to develop them to their fullest potential, but they are there. I possess them, and I can shine brightly if I can only fully embrace them.

The key to embracing the shadow is to catch myself at those moments when I am projecting. Then I can shine a light into my shadow and begin to recognize what’s triggering the projection - the darkness and the light. Only then can I become whole.

Body: Revelations About Food

I love food. I always have, and no matter how poor we were growing up, we always had food on the table, even if it was only bologna sandwiches. My mom is a wonderful cook and baker, and her food was always such a comfort.

Because of my love of food, I’ve struggled with my weight, and growing up, I was a bit chubby. Then as I hit adolescence and then adulthood, my weight fluctuated up and down like a yo-yo as I lost and gained weight. Needless to say, I have a few self-esteem issues related to my body and my weight, and a lot of my emotional baggage is tied up in body image and food.

So, I’ve come to understand that many people, myself included, use food not as fuel for the body, but as an emotional release or as a way to fill a void. We use food for so many reasons other than to fuel our bodies. We use it to celebrate. We use it to mourn. We use it to offer our condolences. We use it as a welcome to the neighborhood. We use it as an antidepressant. We use for comfort and satisfaction. And we self medicate with food as we try to fill our emotional emptiness.

For me, food has always equated to comfort, and as I have struggled with my emotional baggage, it has been a constant source of comfort in my life. But it’s a nasty cycle. I would eat to feel comforted, to feel satisfied, and then be disgusted with all that I ate cursing my body and the excess weight. I would wallow in the self pity that I didn’t have the will power - that I couldn’t maintain the lost weight. And I would eat more, gain more weight. Feel worse. At some point, I would lose some of the weight, feel better about myself, but then fall back into bad eating habits as life got unbalanced and more stressful. And the weight would come back, and I’d feel bad about myself again. My life has been a lot of self-sabotage.

As I struggle now to bring positive and sustainable change to my life. I need to free myself of the emotional hold food has on me and use food for fuel not comfort.

As I kid, I loved sugary cereal for breakfast, and as an adult, I lived off bagels. Both of which are mighty tasty, but not very nutritional - high in carbs, low in fat, but also low in protein. Not the best way to fuel up at the beginning of the day.

Since I’ve switched to a more whole-food, plant-based diet, I start my day in a much better way. I still eat cereal, but it’s of my own making, and it’s packed with a lot of nutrition including protein. Using old fashioned rolled oats as a base, I add some nuts, seeds, and fresh fruit that I top with a little agave nectar, cinnamon, and vanilla soy milk for a chewy, sweet yet yummy and hearty cold cereal. I mix a big batch of the oats, nuts and seeds in a resealable container and cut up the fresh fruits each morning - blueberries and strawberries are my favorite.

Here’s my basic cereal recipe:

8-10 cups of old fashioned rolled oats
approx. 2 cups of sliced almonds
approx. 2 cups of chopped walnuts
approx. 1 cup of raw sunflower seeds
approx. 1/4 cup of golden flax seeds
occasionally I’ll add some sesame seeds as well

Challenge #44: Owning Your Shadow

How can you fully embrace both the light and the dark?

When we find peace with the ups and downs we have experienced, we fully assimilate our light as well as our shadow and lead a thoughtful life. There is always conflict, and we always have to make decisions and often choose sides. But if we strive to be fully aware and make the best of our choices, we discover we have the power to be more accepting and tolerant.

Recognize the darkness you have inside, the fear, the secrets, and even the gold, and reflect on how you can embrace all aspects of yourself. In what ways do you deny your darker parts? What are you hiding in your shadow, and who are you hiding it from? What gold do you have buried inside of you? How can you own your shadow and define yourself?

Western Loudoun Artists Studio Tour, June 9 & 10

The 7th annual Western Loudoun Artists Studio Tour is happening in a little more than two weeks, and I'm participating once again this year. Last was my first on the tour, and it was a great experience. I am really looking forward to it this year, and the studio is almost ready - just a little more cleaning, organizing, sorting, and making.

I'll be selling original mixed-media work, drawings, and paintings, as well as prints of selected artworks and journal pages and copies of my book, The Journal Junkies Workshop. And if anyone wants to make me an offer on some old artwork, I'll be happy to get it out of the studio. I'll also have most of my journals available for viewing, and I'll be sharing my artistic process.

If you are in the Northern Virginia area, please come out and visit the studios of talented local artists. I'm stop #18 in Purcellville. Hope to see you there.

Visit the tour website for more information, tour maps, and a list of artists.

Art: Inspiration

A few of my current works in progress

“Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work” - Chuck Close


I’m always asked about how I come up with my ideas and where I get my inspiration. I keep coming back to this quote by painter Chuck Close. I think inspiration is one of the biggest myths about being artist - one of those mysterious notions that artists like to perpetuate. It makes the artistic process more enigmatic.

In part, I blame the Greeks and their idea of the Muses - divine goddesses responsible for inspiring the arts. This idea of inspiration as a divine and external intervention has been perpetuated up until this day. And it keeps a lot of people, even artists, from realizing that they have something unique and valuable to say. Many of us think of the tortured and tormented artist struggling with his or her demons to bring into being the great poem, the grand novel, or the earth shaking painting. Art becomes a cosmic struggle.

But that’s too simple, too overwhelming, and too paralyzing. Waiting for inspiration to strike is like waiting for lightning to strike - the odds are stacked against it occurring. Not that it won’t happen. People get struck by lightning everyday, especially when they’re holding onto a tall metal pole on top of a hill during a lightning storm. The odds go up. Artistic inspiration is like that. If I wait for it to strike, I sit around for a very long time staring at a blank page, canvas, or paper waiting for this divine idea to strike me from the ether. And nothing happens. But just as I recognize the conditions that increase the likelihood of lightning striking so that I can avoid it, I need to recognize the conditions that will increase the odds of “inspiration” striking. I need to set up those conditions.

But still, I don’t like the word. It’s too loaded. And it’s too easy to slough off the complete lack of making as due to the lack of inspiration. Days, weeks, months can pass, and I am still waiting for the Muse to show. It becomes a convenient excuse to pull out in my dry, unproductive times. It is easier to bemoan the fact that I have no inspiration, that my ideas aren’t good enough, and that my ideas are dumb, stupid, redundant, and unoriginal than to actual shut up and get to work.

But what many of us forget at times is that there is no inspiration. There is only the work. If I show up to the studio, to the journal, to the blank page and get to work, the work leads to ideas. The work leads to more work. Most of the time I have no idea what is going to happen. I may have an inkling about color, theme, or shapes - but no fully formed idea where I know exactly what it will be. If that were the case, why make the work. There’s nothing to discover. Nothing to learn. Nothing to excite me. Nothing to motivate me.

But I start with a mark unsure of where it will lead. I start with a color unsure of what the finished piece will be. But that’s the point - not to get caught up in the product. It’s about the process of discovery. If a piece doesn’t feel like it’s going in a direction I like, I may start again or I may embrace this piece as a challenge to overcome. Often, I start several pieces at the same time as I play with variations on a theme. Not all of my beginnings end in finished pieces. Only a fraction do, but the work leads to work. As I work, the momentum builds, and before long, I have, perhaps, a single piece that is working while the others stall. The individual pieces may stall, but the work doesn’t because I’m always working on multiple pieces. I can jump around and do a little something to one piece and a little something else to another. I can come back weeks or months later to those stalled pieces and find a way of resolving them, or I can leave them unresolved if their not working out. It’s all part of my process, and I still have learned and discovered something.

I do have my slow and unproductive periods, and I have my bouts with self doubt and stagnation. But working through those times in the journal keeps me engaged in the making and not sitting around for inspiration to knock on my door. I just have to remember that there is a natural ebb and flow to the art, but it all works out as long as I stay engaged.

Not only must I show up. I have to get to work.