Exploring Women's Bodies: Make a Visual Journal to your Soul

For the last several months, since Beyond Barbie ended, I've been unclear about what my next step should/could be (as I've written about here several times already). I haven't felt like creating large paintings, or, for that matter, any paintings at all. It was a bit scary to go from a time period of such extreme creativity to this dearth of ideas. Out of this time of "not knowing", I felt led to create a journal/sketchbook which I have been using almost daily. I go into the studio where I have pulled out almost all of the art supplies I own (yes, what a mess!) and let the muse take me. My mantra is "I wonder what would happen if..." then I allow myself to find out. Sometimes I write inspirational quotes in calligraphy. Sometimes I play with paint. Sometimes I doodle with patterns. Sometimes I paint flowers. Every day it's something different, but it's always interesting to me, and, almost magically, it is lifting the fog I'd found myself in. I'm finding it to be an incredible tool for self exploration.

Because it's been so powerful for me, I feel led to offer it to others. The format I've come up with is a bit unorthodox - first we'll meet over a weekend, Oct 6th and 7th, to create the journals themselves - yes! We will prepare the paper, make the cover, and bind the books ourselves! Then we'll meet Monday evenings for six weeks to fill the journals. The class will be skill-based in that you'll learn to make a book, and you may learn some skills in exploring different media, but it'll also be about personal exploration and opening to your creativity. This course will take you wherever you choose to go!

Three of the handmade journals I've created as part of this process.

Below I've pasted the blurb from my website so you can get the whole story. Please contact me if you are interested, have questions, or would like to sign up. I sense the class will fill quickly, so follow your urge, and sign up soon!

Happy creating!

Susan

Make a Visual Journal to Your Soul

Because our analytical brains (words and thoughts) sometimes get in the way of accessing insights, it can be helpful to take a visual approach to journaling to allow our more intuitive selves to emerge and teach us.

In this class, we’ll spend a weekend creating a unique, personal 64-page bound journal, then we’ll spend the next six Monday evenings filling them with musings, experiments, drawings, paintings, collages, brainstorms, and whatever else we decide would be fun/enticing/creative/helpful/juicy and/or delicious to explore. No art experience is needed whatsoever. This is about play, experimentation, and exploration, a journey to your soul…