How to Make a Collage Art Journal

front cover

back cover

inside cover

Material:
1 sheet 8x14 cardstock paper (for cover)
10 pieces 8x14 paper (for journal)
awl
blunt tapestry needle
bone burnisher
18 inches string, DMC emrboidery floss, or ribbon
Laminate paper (Kinkos will laminate for a nominal fee)

Directions:
1. Cut images and words from magazines
2. Affix images to both sides of the cover cardstock
3. Laminate cover
4. Fold in half and burnish flat with bone burnisher (or spoon)
5. Trim one half inch from one side of the ten pieces of 8x14 journal paper
6. Fold in half and burnish flat
7. Place journal paper inside cover
8. Pierce two holes through the journal and cover with the awl
9. Thread needle and insert through cover and paper, then insert up through the other hole
10. Tie the thread together in a secure knot, then trim excess

A Murder of Crows

Winter Crow - Nora Reid

The past two weeks I've come home to hundreds of crows in the fields behind my house and in my oak and poplar trees, (oddly, not one has perched in my corkscrew willow). I have no idea what these visitations portend. I love crows, so I see their visit as a good sign. This past weekend I stood out on my deck and watched them fly overhead. I've learned a few calls, but corvids are far too intelligent to be fooled by my caws. This is the first year in memory that there have been so many. Did you know that crows have a longer lifespan than humans? Okay, the truth is that the longest living crow made it to 29.5 years, but, some legends and crow freaks believe crows sometimes live as long three centuries. Don't you like the legend better?

Crows signify change, and like the song says, "A change will do you good."

I found this etching by Glasgow artist Nora Reid surfing during lunch. To view more of Nora's art check out her website,
blog,exhibition The Royal Scottish Academy, or etsy shop.

If you're in the mood for a poem, check out Wallace Steven's Thirteen Ways ofLooking at a Blackbird.

Poem Therapy at 10:14 P.M. - Jack Gilbert

Failing and Flying
Jack Gilbert

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

I love this poem. It's beautiful and terrifying, bleak and yet, ultimately optimistic. Every time I read it the voice I hear is a man's. I discovered Gilbert's poem over a year ago and I've read and reread it countless times. I've yet to ferret all its secrets, but under the pain, and despite the loss, or perhaps because of it, there is tenderness and love still lingers. Icarus fell, yes, but the important detail of his story is that he flew.

There is a fine line between flying and falling, (and failing),until you hit the ground. When I was a child, I was convinced I could fly. I was quickly disabused of this when I leaped off the couch and impaled myself on the family room metal magazine rack.I still have flying dreams occasionally. The last flying dream I remember, I woke up laughing.

Groundhog Day

Roomscape Groundhog collage - Melissa Gable
Limited edition artist print signed and numbered.

What does a groundhog have to do to get some peace? Obviously, leave the den and prognostications to Punxutawney Phil, and head for the sprawling subburbs.

I found Meliisa Gable's fabulous collage over at Etsy's Groundhog Day feature. Check out her etsy site at onecreative girl, blog, or website.

If you haven't seen the film, Groundhog Day, you'll want to check your cable schedule or head to the last remaining video store on the planet to rent this. The film stars Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. Here's what wiki has to say:

Murray plays Phil Connors, an egocentric Pittsburgh TV weatherman who, during a hated assignment covering the annual Groundhog Day event in Punxsutawney, finds himself repeating the same day over and over again. After indulging in hedonism and numerous suicide attempts, he begins to reexamine his life and priorities. In 2006, the film was added to the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

I can't imagine getting stuck on the hampster wheel of one day, no matter how fantastic it was, (yes, I am mixing my animal metaphors). Sometimes, it feels like some weeks, even years are simply a carbon copy of the last, (do you even know what a carbon copy is?), but eventually you jump off that damned wheel and climb on to another. Hopefully, you find a little joy, forgiveness, and redemption, like Phil Connors ultimately did.

Dan Turns Eighty-two

Four score and two years ago, (1928, for those unwilling to channel Abraham Lincoln's syntax), my father was born in the very room that is now his bedroom.

The entire family, and a few friends, gathered to help celebrate his birthday. I think we counted at least fifty relatives eating birthday cake.

As you can see, I just got around to posting, nearly a month later. It's an understatement to say that it has been an "eventful" first month of the year.

January 3, 2010. Dan & Ann.


Front row: Dan, Ann. Back row: Mary, Scott, Jamie, Pat, Chris, Danna, Alison.

Books of the Week

No one belongs here more than you.

I stayed up very late and subsequently fell asleep reading Miranda July's short story collection. Once I had cleared my head of the night's dreams, I turned on the bedside light and reimmersed myself in the book(in case you're interested in the dream, I was in France and a man in a light turquoise sweater was kissing everyone goodbye, so I hurried over for my farewell kiss. I didn't want to miss out, but the man acted strange and kissed my left cheek. Hmmm... snubbed by a blonde French man. Even my dreams are pathetic).

The characters, language, and content in July's collection are so original and offbeat that they read true and perfectly normal, as in, truth is stranger than fiction, (even though this is, in fact, fiction, as far as I know, anyway). It makes perfect sense that a former swim team member in a small, small town without a pool and hundreds of miles from any body of water, would feel compelled to teach a trio of octogenarians how to swim, in the dry rectangle of her kitchen's lineoleum; that a middle-aged woman would fixate on England's Prince Harry and devise implausibe ways to meet him, fall in love, convince him to move into her apartment, rather than focus on the here and now bleak reality of her love life. The book so far explicates our basic human need for each other, our quest to be loved just for ourselves by revealing our basest desires and selfishness. You'll wince more than once, but you'll also laugh. Out loud.

You can watch July's quirky author interview on youtube, (fyi:the real Miranda is the brunette).

Books to be read or to be thumbed through this week:

Love's Book of Answers - Carol Bolt
Don't get your hopes up and rush to your local bookstore, tears streaming down your face,offering a prayer of thanks and gratitude that your happiness is about to be delivered for only $16.00 plus tax, (or in my case, $6.95 because it was on sale). The book is more in the augury category than the self help kind. Basically, it's a lot like bibliomancy, sans Bible, as in ask a question, open the book to a page of you choice and receive you sentence fragment answer (Here's a fun link that allows you to do just that).

Fat Broke & Lonely No More - Victoria Moran
Okay, this is a seriously great title. According to The Old Farmer's Almanac, February 1 is supposed to be a fortuitous day to begin a diet. My idea of going on a diet is: consume less and exercise more. Wish me luck!

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - Jean-Dominique-Bauby
The story of a man whose indomitable spirit refuses to allow a massive stroke at age forty-three to silence him, by communicating only by blinking his left eye.

Bird Signs: Guidance & Wisdom from Our Feathered Friends - G.G. Carbone
A book with an illustrated deck of cards - something akin to the tarot - which offers wisdom and insight. The first bird I drew from this deck of fifty-two cards was the Blubird/Happiness card that promises I will see happiness again. I woke this morning to a crow's caw, so according to the book, change is on the way.

Poetry Therapy at 8:54 P.M. - Phillip Lopate

We Who Are Your Closest Friends
Phillip Lopate

we who are
your closest friends
feel the time
has come to tell you
that every Thursday
we have been meeting
as a group
to devise ways
to keep you
in perpetual uncertainty
frustration
discontent and
torture
by neither loving you
as much as you want
nor cutting you adrift

your analyst is
in on it
plus your boyfriend
and your ex-husband
and we have pledged
to disappoint you
as long as you need us

in announcing our
association
we realize we have
placed in your hands
a possible antidote
against uncertainty
indeed against ourselves
but since our Thursday nights
have brought us
to a community of purpose
rare in itself
with you as
the natural center
we feel hopeful you
will continue to make
unreasonable
demands for affection
if not as a consequence
of your
disastrous personality

then for the good of the collective

Okay, either this poem makes you laugh out loud in recognition or confirms your paranoid conspiracy theory that everyone is out to vex or ignore you.