HUM 6942 Creative Practice #1

On March 17, 2015, I set foot on a journey that has been rewarding, joyful most of the time,  yet very poignant and sorrowful at other times. Meeting the patients on the oncology floor has given me a greater appreciation for even the smallest things, but especially for my good health. It has cemented my contention that practicing an art form is a path to our inner spirit. It has confirmed for me that we are all creative and spiritual beings. And it has brought home the fact that we are all in transition. Our humanness is tested daily with just surviving and managing our homes, families, work and finances. Then BAAM! something happens that tests your faith, courage, love and hope.

Being able to share my love of the arts with the patients, their families and the hospital staff is a great experience. I have witnessed a patient's pain lightened while my Caring Arts partner, Patty, painted a tiny bird house for her. A spouse whose wife was actively dying started his coloring page with the darkest color in the box and by the time he had finished the page was full of bright, beautiful colors. Grandchildren have spent their time at the hospital with us, coloring, drawing, making collages, and creating cure cancer signs. They created the cure cancer signs on their own initiative without any prompting, which surprised me. Children are much more perceptive than we give them credit for.

Seeing people in their various stages of illness does take it's toll on my personal energy, so it is important to me to find ways of self care to relieve the stress and prevent depression. I do this through many avenues. Most mornings the day begins with reading spiritual material. It provides a foundation for the day. Sometimes I retreat back to reading a spiritual piece during the day. Another ritual I have started is to come home, wash my hands, then take my dogs out onto the dock. I am blessed to live on the Arlington River, a tributary of the St. John's River. Here I can take a deep breathe, close my eyes and exhale. When I open my eyes, I am in a totally different frame of mind. I stay out there for as long as I can take the heat, watching the water birds, the boaters and the water's current. The dogs are a great resource for stress relief, too. They are so happy to see me and smoother me with love and kisses. Can't be sad with four dogs loving on you!

Many days reading art and home decorating magazines are ways of blowing off the day's troubles. Other days my journal provides a place to hold those thoughts. My hope is to be more consistent in writing and to encourage that, I am creating art journals that will be fun to look at so that I will be more likely to pick it up rather than the magazine. For this process, I am creating hand painted papers and finding all kinds of beautiful ephemera to add to the pages. Also, finding beautiful quotes and affirmations to hand letter on the pages.

Here are images of the hand painted papers:

 I love the process of making hand-painted papers. Everything has potential. Some of the papers are made from imprinting textured wallpaper covered with paint onto another substrate. Others are things like paper bags or sheets of music that I cover with paint. My favorites include cheap dollar store paper covered with a mixture of paints, especially gold. And then there are the tea bags stained a beautiful brown. Better yet, tissue paper turned a beautiful rust by wrapping rusty metal with the tissue and putting it in vinegar water.


And here are some of the pages in my journal:

This will be a work in progress over the period of the practicum. A lot of my time on this one has been gluing pages together for strength and painting the hand painted papers. Now I will be able to continue to write and add beautiful artwork for the rest of the book.

This is not the first time I have created an art journal. Basically, it is an extension of my sketch books. It is a means of capturing my thoughts, images I like and just playing around. Sometimes the things in my journals find their way into a more detailed and sophisticated piece of artwork or writing. Sometimes they never see the light of day. Sometimes they are merely transient thoughts that needed a home.