This is among my favorite sets of daily collage pages in my “Looking for a Fairy Tale” art journal.
For now, this photo isn’t great, but it’s a way to show my progress as an artist. (I plan to use a flatbed scanner and turn this journal into a book.)
My current* husband suggested that – perhaps – these pages should look buckled and shadowed. It’s part of the authenticity of the work.
Then again, he’s an artist. For him, the initial impression is as important as the technical details. I love how well he understands the process-v-product aspects of our respective art projects.
The actual pages are heavily collaged and glittered. I created them in a moment (one of many) of frustration and anger. I was at least as angry myself as at my (in 2002) soon-to-be-ex.
Oh, his decision to divorce me was correct, even though – for years – I protested it. (It was one of those “for the sake of the children” things that some of us default to. In retrospect, I should have started packing as soon as he announced that he wanted a divorce. It might have been better for all of us.)
Anyway…
These journal pages were about speaking up. Being myself. Not explaining who I was, what I was doing, or why. Just being.
Whether anyone else appreciated what I was doing… that wasn’t as important as creating.
Doing the things that I do well. Things unique to me.
Whether anyone else liked or admired my work – or even me – was never a priority. Maybe it should have been. (My then-husband’s regular refrain, no matter what I did, always concluded with “but what you really ought to do is…,” followed by something that – to me – seemed incongruous.)
So there it is.
Looking at it now, the art in this journal seems raw and a little frantic.
An emotional explosion in progress.
But it’s also clear that I’m an artist—a creator.
Scanning this journal is a profoundly emotional process for me. Looking at these pages, it’s impossible not to see what was going on when I created them.
And how I got there, a little at a time. A marriage firmly urged by our church, and 20 years later, a divorce that I resisted foolishly.
I’m glad I documented my feelings. Art should always be about passion, sometimes raw, but always honest.
And now, I’m inspired by an actual happily-ever-after marriage of 20+ years. My current husband was there – as a friend – when I needed him, and he still is, every moment of every day. We’re deeply in love, and he makes our home a haven. It’s why I’ve finally been able to leave the past behind and get back to making art.
These are two pages in a 5″ x 8.5″ spiral-bound art notebook. Materials: Torn pages from magazines, colored tissue paper, glitter, and Golden Gel Medium as an adhesive.
* It seems utterly absurd that I’ve had multiple husbands. I have no way to explain – even to myself – the many extraordinary things I’ve done (and continue to do), in a life that I otherwise think of as quite tame and average.
But, yes, some things in my life were (and still are) unexpected. Now…? I wouldn’t have it any other way. (But I’ll confess that I sometimes wonder “what if…?” about clinging to that previous marriage, when I should have left. When he divorced me, I didn’t even hire an attorney. I was that deeply in denial on many levels.)