The 'January' theme was The Blank Page and How to Face It. The art challenge for the second week was: gesso. I have gesso. I have had it for longer than I can remember - I bought it for something and never used it. Well, I have now - very useful stuff.
The journal prompt was: "The beginning is always today," a quote from Mary Shelley.
I have quickly discovered that in this project, as with my writing group, and my book club, I don't follow instructions. I find the idea of the beginning being today a bit silly - we all carry our past with us, so I find the idea of building new from old both more valid and more interesting. I started with a poem I wrote a while ago:
On Building New from Old
I give to you a cracker box,
some left-over dye,
an exercise book
with words written
in indecipherable symbols,
off-cuts from another project,
ribbons from past gifts,
tail ends of threads
and the skeletal remains
of a long dead sea creature.
Even the new born babe
brings baggage
entering the world naked
but with several pairs
of well worn genes
and nine months of
private living.
As life slips by
we gather and collect
we discard and hoard
we let chances slip
through our fingers
like soft salty sand
on a hot beach day
Of those gatherings,
some are treasured -
boldly displayed or
tucked away in
red tissue.
Others seem debris
needing spring cleaning
out of existence.
But consider the bits
and pieces of your life
before you throw them
out with the rubbish
on Monday morning:
they may yet be used
for building new treasures.
I think this is very appropriate - I am more a word person, and a book craft person, not an artist, so this page is very messy. But I am going to keep going, and eventually I hope that my pages will become more artisty. I didn't want to show these early pages to the world, but decided that doing so is part of my challenge to "expand the comfort zone."
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