A Visual Journal

In the summer of 2008, I had some minor knee surgery, which required me to indulge in all sorts of edible and visual treats, as well as new books and magazines, nothing too heavy. Okay, for me, that might be a graphic biography of Harvey Pekar's cancer journey, Our Cancer Year, which actually was very serious and sad, but also interesting and amazing. You can find it here on Amazon. Pekar, the author of American Splender, passed away this year--check out WKSU's website on Pekar.

I discovered Pekar, like many wonderful writers I've "met" in my life (pre-WWW) through my local library stacks. Also, Lynda Barry's books were there, and I was mesmorized by her drawings and humor and raw honesty in One Hundred Demons. Here is a link to Barry's work and her books.

Which brings me to the personal... several times I've tried to keep journals. It's never worked. Ever. No matter how lovely the journal or earnest my beginning efforts. Perhaps it is better. Perhaps the collage that is my memory, somewhat faded, "distressed" here and there like an altered-art technique, "embellished" with moments captured on film, create just as real of a past as words on a page I'd read years later and wonder "Who was I then?"

Still...time isn't standing still and what seems like everyday events now might be the thing in ten years that I really wished I'd buckled down and noted in detail. Conversations with my sons, where Mark and I spent our vacations. What books I'd liked, authors I'd worked with... where my artwork went... how my dog looks when he falls asleep on the couch... It might be so very very important, to me. Probably not to anyone else; diaries, by their nature, allow self-absorption. I want to be able to sit and look at scrapbooks and drawings and remember this wonderful collection of years called My Life. Maybe that is self-centered. Maybe it is pride.

I think it is my way of living joyful events twice. When they happen and when I remember them. And remembering sorrow, how I coped and how I got through it. Remembering people who passed on--how precious are my memories of those no longer here. It is all important to me. And, under the haze of a few days of pain medication and a really great thing called the Polar machine (which kept my knee nice and numb for a good two weeks)...I started drawing a visual journal.

I didn't draw them for anyone but myself. And I share this as an encouragement for you to try the same. Whether with words, lines, photos, video, or a scrapbook... preserve your memories, remember where you came from, and dream of where you would like to go. Don't judge your words or your drawing ability. Don't over-analyze. Put it down. Put it all down. Embrace it and release it, simultaneously.




Here are some links on keeping a Visual Journal.

• http://visualjournaling.com/home.html
  
• Keeping A Visual Journal--Capturing Nature In Field Notes-- http://culturemob.com/events/6075395-keeping-a-visual-journal-capturing-nature-in-field-notes-pa-wayne-19087-radnor-memorial-library
  
• How to Create Art Journals-- http://www.ehow.com/how_5798029_create-art-journals.html
  
• The Art of Manliness, discusses journals/diaries: http://community.artofmanliness.com/forum/topics/keeping-a-diary-journal
  
• List of many related articles: http://www.creativity-portal.com/howto/writing/journal/
  
• Scrapbooking vs. Art Journaling: http://painting.about.com/od/keepinganartjournal/a/art_journaling.htm
  
  

Preserving Memories with Scrapbooks: Super Scrapbooking Links

Note: After my essay, below, there are dozens of links to scrapbooking websites, videos, crop locations, supplies, and more. So, scroll down if you are in a hurry, or better yet, bookmark this post so you can refer to it later.

A few months ago, I attended my first scrapbook "crop." I knew nothing about scrapbooking previously, beyond a visit to a camera store in Pickerington, Ohio, that had an astounding selection of scrapbooking products and tools and few people in the store buying or advising. There was little warmth there, and that made all the "stuff" seem very commercial to me. Also, a bit expensive.

Now, I see things differently. A friend named Janis invited me to a dinner with her needlework club (Athens Friends and Newcomers). There, I met Margaret, who invited me to the evening book club of the same main group. The book club met in the home of a woman named Jan Weckman (who I later found went to Kent State about the same time I was there). As the book club disbanded, we passed the door of a spacious craft room located off the foyer. I asked if I could see the room: two rooms, with big tables, comfortable chairs, a large-screen TV hooked up to a computer, all manner of tools and punches and stamps and binders and paper!

"What is this?" I asked, all Janice-in-Wonderland. "This is where I hold scrapbooking workshops," Jan replied (or something to that effect, I felt like I'd found the end of the new-crafty-person-in-town rainbow and, one-two-three, I'd signed up for the next class.

It was a Saturday morning at 10 a.m. and went until 4 p.m. The reasonable price included a healthful lunch as well. I took along the scrapbook I had been working on (with no exposure to other scrapbooks or "crops"). And purchased a few products Jan had in her studio from Creative Memories (with all the tools she had available, only the most basic of supplies were needed, and everything CM offers is acid-free and will keep your family photos safe for generations).

It was a great way to spend a rainy summer Saturday, and the eight women there were friendly and interesting. It was easy to start conversations because everyone had their family photographs with them and there were scenes of a child here, a vacation there, a holiday as well. The second crop I attended at Jan's house had a few of the same women, and a few I hadn't met yet. The third crop, earlier today, the same. I saw some women I knew and the others were scrapbooking friends-to-be. We swapped the information we had about the recent tornados that hit Athens and Meigs Counties (about 38 hours earlier), and I marveled that more information had not been available in this age of instant news (but the newspaper's building had been seriously damaged and our other paper in town only publishes twice a week).

Afterward, I couldn't help but think of my grandmother, Helen Greene. She made beautiful quilts, all pieced by hand and quilted by hand by the women in her church group. I wondered how their conversations compared to those in crops today: children, husbands, school activities, work, books read, recipes tried, movies, illness. But also there are periods of silence. Jan has quiet jazz playing in the background and fresh brewed coffee. How blessed I feel to have found Jan and her workshops.

Since Jan sells Creative Memories products, I am using those products now (previously I had bought materials at Wal-Mart). I also purchased CM's "Storybook Creator" and am learning how to do the digital scrapbooking. Since I've worked in Photoshop for years (creating book covers), it was pretty easy for me to pick up, but even without that background I think it would be fairly easy. After an hour or so, anyone with some digital photos (or print photos scanned in) should be happily creating a digital scrapbook page. (See my first effort in the image above.)

I spent some time searching for scrapbooking information online and perhaps these links will be of interest to you too. If I've left anything out (and I'm sure I have, this is not an exhaustive list, who has that kind of time...), let us all know in the comments field. Or, join Appalachian Morning on Facebook, and leave a comment there.


CATEGORIES BELOW:

1. General Information


2. Videos


3. Scrapbooking Supplies & Tools


4. Workspace


5. Digital Scrapbooking


6. Instructors / Crops / Conventions


7. Scrapbooking Magazines


8. Books on Scrapbooking (and Card Making)

ONE--GENERAL INFORMATION:

CREATING KEEPSAKES

MEMORY MAKERS MAGAZINE

CREATIVE MEMORIES

SIMPLE SCRAPBOOKS

SCRAPBOOKS, ETC. (A BETTER HOMES & GARDENS SITE)

SCRAPBOOK.COM

A GREAT VIDEO ON TAKING PHOTOS FROM BOXES TO SCRAPBOOK

SCRAPBOOK FLAIR

TWO--VIDEOS:

MY ASSISTANT, TYLER WINSTON, HAS SET UP A YOUTUBE CHANNEL WITH FAVORITE VIDEOS RELATED TO SCRAPBOOKING!

ALL CREATIVE MEMORIES VIDEOS

STAMPINGTON & COMPANY'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL

THREE--SCRAPBOOKING SUPPLIES & TOOLS:

CRICUT MACHINE

SILHOUETTE SD

VIDEO ON 4 FAVORITE TOOLS

CREATIVE MEMORIES

YOU CAN FIND MANY SCRAPBOOKING SUPPLIES FOR SALE ON EBAY.

IDEAS: CHARITY CROPS; MASQUERADE CROPS; TIPS & TECHNIQUES CROPS

YAHOO SHOPPING LISTS SCRAPBOOKING SUPPLIES

TRAVEL SCRAPPIN': "QUALITY SCRAPBOOKING SUPPLIES FOR ALL YOUR TRAVEL ADVENTURES"

QUIRKS OF ART

STUFF4SCRAPBOOKING

FOUR--WORKSPACE:



FIVE--DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING

CREATIVE MEMORIES: DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING IDEAS

DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING SOFTWARE REVIEWS (TOP 10)

CREATIVE MEMORIES: DIGITAL SOLUTIONS (ON YOUTUBE)

MEMORY MIXER (ON YOUTUBE)

MY MEMORIES SUITE

MAC SCRAP

SCRAP GIRLS

SIX--INSTRUCTORS / CROPS / CONVENTIONS:

GREAT AMERICAN SCRAPBOOK CONVENTIONS

U.S. SCRAPBOOK STORE LOCATOR

CREATIVE MEMORIES "FIND A CONSULTANT"

MY SCRAPBOOKING TEACHER, JAN WECKMAN, AND LINKS TO PURCHASE PRODUCTS (CREATIVE MEMORIES)

PROJECT CENTER AT CREATIVE MEMORIES

WHAT IS A "CROP"?

HOSTING A CROP

PREPARING TO ATTEND A CROP

OUR CROPS PLUS

MICHELLE VOKE'S BLOG HAS A LIST OF CROPS IN PA, MD, VA (AUG '10 - APRIL '11)

INTERVIEW WITH ALI EDWARDS

REAL WOMEN SCRAP TV

Creating Keepsakes Conventions - Scrapbooking conventions held throughout the United States.
Memories ScrapbooKing Expo - Shows in Ohio, Florida, and New Jersey.
Scrapbooks Megameet - Scrapbooking conventions in the Great Lakes area.
Scrapbook Tour -Midwest
Scrapbook Portal Events - US and Canada.
Crop All Day - North Texas and Oklahoma.
Get Croppin' - mid-Atlantic area
Crop a Lot Retreats - East Coast
Croptopia Getaways - Northeast (cruises, too)

SEVEN--SCRAPBOOKING MAGAZINES:

EIGHT--BOOKS ON SCRAPBOOKING (AND CARD MAKING ALSO):

Memory-Keepers - Drawing

What is a memory-keeper drawing? I like to think of it as a way to document events, memories, of things that happen to me in my life or that are important to me in some way.

If the professors in my art classes had talked about keeping a sketchbook as a way to document one's life, or make sense of the visual images bombarding us daily, or as a visual journal we can look back on thirty years down the road--well, I might have kept a more faithful journal. We were just told that "all artists should keep sketchbooks." Certainly practicing technique is important. Working out ideas before commiting them to more expensive materials is a good idea too. But how about forgetting about "doing your best," or "perfecting technique," and just getting down the images, feelings, memories? That is what I'm finding joy in now, as a "mature artist." My inner critic has been silenced, for the most part, and I can draw without evaluating the worthiness of my product. I can create art for art's sake, for my sake.

I was thinking recently about all the pets I'd cared for in my lifetime. Rather than write a list, I drew them. The ones who were with me briefly and went to live with others, are shown walking or flying off the edges of the paper. Those who stayed with me until they died, are shown with little halos. Quite a list when it was all compiled: Timmy the teddy bear hamster who liked to watch TV while sitting on my knee; Marcel, my first pet bird, a Gouldian finch; Joey my first dog, a dashhound; Bailey, the beloved cockatoo whose funny antics still bring a smile to my face.

As for the drawing; it's just OK. But it got me to thinking about other projects that could take off from this one. Actually, this drawing came to me after seeing a photo of Frida Kohla with parrots on her shoulder.

Whether using ATCs, AECOs, collage, paint, scrapbooks, or writing in a journal or drawing in a sketchbook--take time to document your life.

I have some sketches I did decades ago. I've been carting them around from place to place and they are getting rather raggedy. I think I will scan them into my computer and print them out on Epson presentation matte paper (my favorite) and assemble them in a binder.

Do you have any sketches or artwork done, not for the final product, but as a process for keeping memories?