Permission to Play - Week 3

This post is part of my weekly exploration of the book "Wreck This Journal" by Keri Smith. I belong to a group of creative bloggers called "The Next Chapter" and we're all blogging together. Everyone is welcome to join us and blog along at any time. In Wreckage We Unite!

Unfortunately I didn't listen to Jamie's video (she is our fearless leader and the founder of The Next Chapter book club) on last week's post so I didn't realize we were supposed to be picking an exercise in the book that scared us the most! Instead, I just randomly flipped to some pages and wrecked away!

Tracings from my Purse

What I like about this group
Taking time to be a part of this group and 'wrecking a journal' may seem silly at first but play can actually be a sacred activity and you can feel it in your body. Silly play feels good; it feels free and delightful and happy. I also feel at peace with myself while playing as if I've just nourished a little patch of my soul... and I have! To read more about 'the spirit of deep play' I recommend a book written by Diane Ackerman called "Deep Play."

The Dope on Candy
I was inspired many years ago by the late Candy Jernigan (she passed away in 1991 at the age of 39). She was an avant garde artist in New York City who was committed to documenting "any and all physical 'proof' that I had been there." She filled her journals with traces of food she'd eaten, old bottle caps, leaves, dirt, found litter etc. She had a compulsive desire to collect and document. One of her more memorable collections called "Found Dope" consisted of crack vials found over a 16 day period near her New York apartment and arranged in exquisite detail - see image to the left - it comes from the book "Evidence - The Art of Candy Jernigan."

You can follow along with Week 3 of the Next Chapter here.

Friday is for Gran & The Fiddlehead - Part 7

Today's post is dedicated to my Gran Betty and her canal boat called The Fiddlehead. This regular Friday post documents a recent two week family vacation taken by 35 family members on 5 narrow boats, with folks ranging in age from 8 months to 91 years old (Gran herself!)

This was Day 7 as recorded in my faithful moleskin journal. We had just spent yesterday at Warwick Castle (pictured below) otherwise known as "Britain's Ultimate Castle" according to their website. It dates back almost 1,100 years to 914 AD when Ethelfleda (cool name!), daughter of Alfred the Great, ordered the building of a 'burh' or an earthen rampart to protect the small hill top settlement of Warwick from Danish invaders.

Some English sayings I gathered along the trip:
Blighty (used especially by troops serving abroad, means - Britain; home.)
"Bob loves tatties and winkies" (written on someone's van-take a guess what it means!)
Give Way (a street sign that means "Yield")
Shandy with bangers and mash (good food and good drink; ie. pub grub.)

Me and my good buddy, the court jester at Warwick Castle (can you tell I'm a flautist?)

Wreck This Journal - The Next Chapter Begins!

Wreck This Journal - what a great title!

This is the beginning of another creative bloggers book club group journey. Each week a big group of us will be blogging along chapter by chapter as we share our stories in concert with the wild and wacky creative exercises outlined in Keri Smith's book, "Wreck This Journal."

Our last book was called "The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women" and I met, blogged and was inspired by a whole bunch of cool new online creative friends as we kept pace with each other week by week, blogging about the book and how it was helping to shape our lives.

The book club was started by Toronto based Creativity Coach, Jamie Ridler and what better way to bring together a diverse bunch of creative characters to share life and art via the internet. Please join in - we just started and it's never too late to sign up! Here is Jamie's site where where you can learn more about how it all works: The Next Chapter - Wreck This Journal Blog.

I'm also just now realizing that the title of this book is literally what it's about and we, as participants/readers are encouraged to do just that - "wreck this journal"! What fun! Many bloggers in our book club are afraid to demo books, but I am not! Probably 'cause I've taken book arts classes and have seen great examples of usually very old books (with cool decorative leather looking covers) destroyed, but all in the name of art, so it's okay. That's also why I've featured "Mel" - the little drawing to the right - he (or she) is one of my left handed drawings (done with my non dominant hand of course!) and he and his kind (500 or so other Lefty characters) enjoy being perfectly imperfect, messy, uncouth (if called for) and just plain free. Yeh! So I look forward to sharing in the 'wrecking' with all of you!
"Wreck On!"

Friday is for Gran & The Fiddlehead - Part 6

This is my weekly letter to my Gran who now resides in Ottawa. This post commemorates a recent family reunion along the canals and waterways of England - we were thirty-five family members in all, ranging in age from eight months old to ninety-one (Gran herself!) We toured the Leicester Loop on five narrow boats seeing the middle of England at three miles an hour - the perfect speed ... indeed!

Daily sketching kept me occupied. This was Day Six from my moleskin journal - depicting the route to Coventry - where Lady Godiva rode naked through the streets on her horse. The rooftop sketches in the lower right hand corner of my journal (pictured above) are what's known as the Weaver's Cottages in Foleshill, a suburb of Coventry. Skilled jacquard silk weavers called Huguenots escaped persecution in Europe and settled here and soon thousands of local people were employed in this cottage industry.

Gran's boat held seven people in total and was equipped with a special ramp for her wheelchair. One night I tucked her into bed by saying, "Sleep tight - don't let the bed bugs bite" and quick as a whip she answered back, "If they do get out your shoe and beat them black and blue!"

Friday is for Gran & The Fiddlehead - Part 5

Friday's post is dedicated to my Gran Betty who lives in a nursing home and used to own a canal boat in England called The Fiddlehead. This is my weekly letter to her. This post also commemorates a recent family trip taken by thirty-five family members as we motored five canal boats (at three miles an hour) along the Leicester Loop in England on a two week vacation sponsored by Gran herself. We ranged in age from eight months old to ninety-one (Gran herself) and it was a trip I shall never forget!

This is me casually steering a several ton canal boat - no worries, just watch out for ninety degree angles that require turning whilst going under a curved brick bridge - oops! (I guess anyone can make a mistake on their first day out!)

Two pages from my sketchbook, painted hastily (well as fast as one can while scenery whips by at two miles an hour from the deck of a boat!)

This is Jackie, one of my ship mates (and engaged to my cuz, at the time this was taken) swabbing the deck - those Virgos do love to be tidy! (And I should know, 'cause I'm one of them.)

Just a regular canal boat dinner. We all took turns pairing up to cook. That's me on the right and my hubbie across from me (in the front,) with Jackie next to me and my two cousins alongside. We all shared this particular boat (unofficially known as the 'party-boat,') along with my brother Pete (who was taking the picture.) Everyone really went all out with the cooking - buying meats from small village meat shops, veggies from small supermarkets, good wine and all the fixings; all trying to outdo each other, but we were the envy of the other four boats, I can tell you that much!

Gran - Part 1
Gran - Part 2
Gran - Part 3
Gran - Part 4