the art journal project

Some old time readers may remember that in 2009 I joined a year long art journal project. My good friend Cindy approached me in December of 2008 about joining this group she was coordinating. JZ had recently died, and she thought it would be good for me to get involved. You may be familiar with how this works, but I will explain anyway...
There are twelve members and each person decides on a theme for their journal. The journals can made of anything... store bought, handmade, recycled books, etc. The first month is spent creating a cover and artwork for your own journal.  A list is created with journaler's (I don't think that is really a word!) addresses. At the end of the month you ship your journal to the next name on the list and you receive a journal from the person whose name is before yours. Over the next month you create one or two pages of artwork based on that journal's theme.
The theme I chose was "Loss". When I got my journal back at the end of the project, it was very emotional. Here are few photos of pages in the book...

 The cover is a photo that JZ took of his vintage Esquire. The drawing I did represents him and the things I associate with his being. Some may find it morbid that I represented him as a skeleton shortly after his passing. The skeleton represents not only his death, but also his fascination with skulls. I still have his favorite goat and steer skulls hanging in the log cabin.

This is my friend Cindy's page. Underneath an abstract water color painting, are layers of tissue paper stitched to the page with gold thread. Under each layer are the stories of friends that have died.

 And sometimes loss is GOOD thing! 

 This page is very sweet. A collage of letters and envelopes that a father wrote to his daughter over the span of many years.

 More sweet pages with father daughter memories

Abstract painting, glued into the pages. Sometimes journalers wrote explanatory notes along with their entries, others left you guessing.

Some months I opened my journal package and was immediately inspired. Other times it was a struggle to complete. The project was a catalyst for me to get back to work in the studio and at the same to explore other mediums, and a little art therapy while grieving is a good thing! In the past I shared some photos from the other journals. I may post some more over the next couple of days.

So you may be asking why I am writing about this now...

I am considering getting a new journal group together for 2013. Who better to ask than my blog readers & writers, are any of you interested? If shipping costs concern you, the journals are shipped USPS media mail, which is the least expensive (but slow). I would do my best to have the person that you ship to, live as close as possible to you.

You don't have to be a visual artist to participate. This is very open ended... there was lots of poetry in the journals, collages, photography, stories. I am looking for 10 (Cindy get first refusal) or possibly 11 people to join in. 

If you think you may be interested please comment and ask questions... I have 6 months to pull this thing together!

the end of the old photos (i promise)

Here are a few more pictures that were on my old camera...

One of our last tasks before moving to Seagrove was to finish building the NH Potters Guild community wood kiln. The committee completed construction and fired it just before our big move. 

The kiln is on Al Jaeger's property in Deerfield, NH. Al makes really detailed wood fired houses. This one is sitting atop of Al's old and falling down wood kiln. He also has these house and other sculptures scattered throughout the woods alongside his mile long dirt driveway.

I missed this workshop with Ken Matsuzaki in 2010 at the NH Institute of Art but Jeff, being a faculty member attended and took these photos.

The Institute has a good relationship with Pucker Gallery in Boston so typically when they are having an exhibition the clay artist will do a workshop at NHIA. The year before Matsuzaki, Randy Johnston was a presenter and Phil Rogers has presented a few times.
I think that is the end of the "found" photos. Time to get to work, there is another bisque kiln to load while we wait for the gas kiln to cool. Tomorrow I should have a photo of the finished "Wedding Cake Box" as well as a couple of smaller covered ovals. Can't wait to get them out of the kiln!!

photos from the past...

i came across the first picture when john and i were combining households...

john at his studio & gallery in Frederick, MD

i recently started to read "A Potter's Book" by Bernard Leach it is a copy that john's parents gave him for his birthday in 1968...tucked inside was this picture...

john throwing pots on a kick wheel

date unkown...but from the hair it has to be the 70's!