Hello friends
No words today other than I am hoping you are all well and happy.
Big love
AJ 🙂
Silence gives answers – Rumi
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Author Archives: ajsartjournal
You are a divine being…
Hello friends!
It’s mid week and it’s muggy, we have had a little bit of rain, but really what we need is a fantastic electric storm to clear the air and then more sunshine. Well that’s what I’d like anyway. My head has been feeling fuzzy for the past couple of days and I am sure it has something to do with air pressure and atmospherics.
So this week I have been working on my secret project and I’m having LOTS of fun. One day I will show you the results 🙂 I’ve also been researching and writing up display sheets for the history group about the town’s photographers from the mid 1800s, which is very interesting and I’m still doing the boring day job 🙂
Researching the photographers made me think that I really need to try and get back into photography again, I have two digital cameras which I use often and they are OK. The good thing about digital is that you can take lots of photos and just delete the ones you don’t like and there are no processing costs, but, to me, there is something almost lifeless about the digital photos.
My BIG love is using film and my lovely Lomography LCA camera, it’s the perfect camera for me. I love the way it sits in the palm of my hand and I love the way it vignettes the images. The problem with analogue photography though is that it’s getting harder and more expensive to get the film developed these days. My favourite process is to use slide film and get it developed as normal negative film. This process (known as cross-processing) messes with the colours in a way that gives fantastic results. Different films give different results. Unfortunately many of the companies that are still developing film react in horror when I ask them to process the film with the ‘wrong’ chemicals and those that agree to do it charge a ridiculous, and unnecessary, premium for doing so.
Here is an example of a cross-processed image, so you can see what I mean about the colours – super saturated.
The page above is another from my fourth Teesha Moore inspired journal and the quote is from the late, great Terrence McKenna. If you don’t know who T McKenna was then you are clearly not of my generation, or if you are around the same age as me but you still don’t know who he was, then your life took a completely different path to mine. 😉
Have a good week and I’ll see you soon.
Big love
AJ 🙂
COPYRIGHT
© Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
A Moment of Calm
Hello friends
I hope you had a good weekend, mine has been fine – a little bit of gardening, a little bit of housework, some history research, some art, some good food, some time with my parents, catching up with emails, but I still made no progress with tidying up my room, it just never seems to get tidy and I never completely catch up with everything on my ‘to do’ list. Perhaps that’s the whole point, there always has to be ‘something else’ to do just to keep the forward momentum.
So anyway, there is lots going on in my life and it’s all good and I’m happy. I hope things are good for you too.
The page above is another Teesha Moore inspired page and I was practising with different lettering. It’s not as ‘busy’ as my usual pages but I am pleased with it nevertheless.
Right, it’s late here and I’m off to bed.
See you soon
Big love
AJ 🙂
COPYRIGHT
© Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Whoah! It’s Wednesday already!
“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”
Albert Einstein
Hello friends!
It’s mid-week already! I think this is a shock to me because I had the day off work on Monday and after a lovely long weekend this week seems very short and fast!
I read this theory about why time seems to speed up as you get older and, basically, it is to do with repetition and familiarity. The way to slow down your perception of time is to get as many new and unique experiences as you can. We should also focus on positive (rather than negative) past memories, try to live more in the present and hold a positive perception of the future. Use time wisely. Food for thought anyway…
I have spent much of my time in the last week looking for something I had lost. I thought I knew at least which room it was in but I couldn’t find it I even searched in the recycle bin, just in case. But then today I found it, and nowhere near (not even the same building) as I was sure I had left it! You know sometimes I worry a little about the state of my brain!
So I thought today is probably a good day for another page from my Circles of Wisdom journal.
I hope you have a good week.
Big love
AJ 🙂
COPYRIGHT
© Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Scattering Stars like Dust – Rumi
Hello friends!
It’s still tropical here on the sunny Isle of Wight and I’m loving it, even though I am not getting much of an opportunity to get out in it, it is just lovely to be able to walk outside and sit in the garden with my morning cup of coffee and we have been eating our evening meal out on the decking for a couple of weeks now.
I was at work for 4 days this last week and it was VERY warm in my office. Almost every other office in the building has air con but my little cupboard doesn’t so I have been having the big window wide open all day with a dark cloth (actually it’s a sarong) hanging over it to keep the sunlight out and I have a fan switched on full all day. It’s still slightly uncomfortable but I’m not complaining because I would rather put up with a little discomfort than have to share a cool office with all those noisy people 🙂
My mum went into hospital for day surgery on Thursday and is now back home, she seems fine but is a little tired.
Last Friday and tomorrow (Monday) I have taken leave from work. On Friday I made an attempt to tidy up my art room, I wasn’t entirely successful, but it is slightly better than it was (my OCD husband may not agree with that statement, but it looks tidier to me).
On Saturday my French nephew, A, who has just finished his Engineering degree at Imperial College London and started a new, 2 year, design course at the Royal College of Art, came to visit my parents (his grandparents) which was lovely. It is always a joy to have him visit. On Saturday evening T was DJing at a small festival, the Rhythm Tree Festival, on the Island and he managed to get an extra ticket for my nephew so we took him along with us. It was a SMALL festival, probably less than 3000 people there, so it wasn’t too crowded and had a good mix of ages and a very friendly atmosphere. We saw a good reggae band when we arrived and then just had to wait an hour until T did his ‘world dance music’ set, which my nephew thought was ‘Amazing! We all had a great time and my ancient knees have been aching today from all the dancing. We met loads of the people we used to go partying with 20 years and more ago. We are all much older and slower, but apparently not much wiser these days 😉
The page above is another from my fourth Teesha Moore inspired journal and I really like this page. The quote is by Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, theologian, and Sufi mystic.
I am looking forward to another day off work tomorrow and I’m hoping to get at least a few things ticked off my ‘To Do’ list.
Have a great week and I’ll see you soon
Big love
AJ 🙂
COPYRIGHT
© Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
The Universe Says…
Hello friends
I hope all is cool with you. We are having a tropical heatwave! This weather reminds me so much of Sunny Tobago (which is probably my favourite place in the world). Oh how I’d love to be “Limin’ wid de locals at Castara Village” right now. In case you don’t know “Limin'” is the national past time on Tobago and it means hanging out and chatting. Tobagians are the friendliest people I’ve met they are so chilled, even though the temperature rarely drops below 20 degrees C.
Gosh what a busy week I’ve had!
On Tuesday I went up to London with three friends from Ryde Social Heritage Group to attend the annual conference of Community Archives & Heritage Group at University College London on Wednesday. We had a great couple of days and the conference gave us the opportunity to meet with other local historians and professional archivists. I even felt relaxed and happy giving my 10 minute presentation about the RSHG. A big part of the conference was the presentation of awards and Ryde Social Heritage Group received an award for “Most Inspirational Community Archive”. We are so happy and proud that our little local group has been given this national award.
We didn’t get back from London until late on Wednesday night and then it was back to work for me on Thursday and Friday. No-one does my work while I’m away so I had to try and cram in 4 days worth of work into 2 days. I was only partially successful but as I made a decision a while ago that I was not going to allow work to stress me out at going home time on Friday I just switched off (computer and work head) and came home.
On Friday evening I had to prepare a presentation to give at Ryde Social Heritage Group’s quarterly meeting.
On Saturday we had the quarterly meeting and it was my pleasure to report to the members that we had received a national award for being Inspirational. After the business of the meeting we had a fascinating talk by a guest speaker on Life in Roman Britain. Afterwards most of the committee went out for lunch but I had other things to do so couldn’t join them. I hear they had a great time though.
Also this week I have started work on an exciting project which I won’t be able to tell you about until after the summer. It is going to be fun and rewarding for me though 
The page above is another from my fourth Teesha inspired journal. I don’t really like the lettering on this page, but I do like the colours and the words.
I hope you all have a great week.
Big love
AJ
COPYRIGHT
© Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Wonder
Hello friends
Wow, summer is really here now, it’s scorching hot! I hope you are enjoying lovely weather too where ever you are.
So that’s the Ryde Arts Festival over with for another year. Well not really we still have to have meetings to discuss what went right and what went wrong and how we can improve for next year, and then the planning meetings and hopefully some workshops throughout the year until next summer. I have enjoyed it and I received some lovely feedback about my personal art which is a bonus.
I spent today sitting at the Depozitory from 12:30 to 4pm but only had a few visitors partly I think because of the glorious weather, many people just headed for the beach, and partly because of the Wimbledon finals. I am sure that everyone is delighted that Andy Murray won.
This week I finally managed to find a little time to do some art journaling in my altered book. This is a quick page I created with the theme of Wonder. The quote is by Helen Keller and (in case you can’t read it) says “The infinite wonders of the universe are revealed to us in exact measure as we are capable of receiving them”. It’s a bit different to the pages I’ve been posting recently and it felt good to be doing some mixed media and layers again. I hope you like it. 🙂
Short post tonight because it’s T’s Birthday and I have to pop down to the local Indian restaurant to collect his Birthday dinner.
I won’t be posting mid week this week because I am going to London to give a speech at a conference on Wednesday and won’t get home until late. Hopefully I will be back next weekend and in the meantime I hope you have a lovely and rewarding time.
Big love
AJ 🙂
COPYRIGHT
© Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Janette Gregson and ajsartjournal with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Deepest Depths
Hello friends
I couldn’t post anything yesterday because I couldn’t connect to the internet, not sure why, just one of those things that happens now and then. T was getting very anxious about not being able to get on line, but I just did some art instead 🙂
I hope things are good for you where-ever you are. Here all is fine, my chronic hayfever is much better, I’m no longer sneezing all the time and my eyes have stopped streaming, my head does feel quite congested though and I can only breathe easily though my left nostril, but that’s OK at least I am still breathing 🙂
The Arts Festival is going well, on Tuesday I went to an Open Mic Poetry evening at the library which was fun. I’ve never written any poetry so I was only a spectator, but a lot of the poetry was very good and it was an enjoyable evening. Yesterday Lucia Para was giving demonstrations at the Depozitory on how she creates her lovely art and in the evening there was an Accoustic Originals event at St Thomas but I had to miss both of those – due to work, shopping and trying to sort out internet problems..
Tomorrow I am sitting at the Depozitory all day, minding the Never Ending Story exhibition, hopefully I will get some visitors and in any case it will give the chance to do some collaging 🙂 I have taken the day off work so that I could sit at the exhibition all day.
Yesterday I had an amazing email and potentially something very exciting will come from it. I don’t think I can talk about it just yet, but it feels good and it feels like the Universe is being extra kind to me at the moment.
The spread above is a page from a journal I started working in during the Mermaid Circus workshop back in April this year. I didn’t really achieve as much as I’d hoped during the workshop but the tutorials by Jane Davenport and Teesha Moore were wonderful. For me it was well worth the cost just to spend some online time with Teesha, she is such an inspiration for me.
That’s all for now folks have a great week
Big love
AJ 🙂
Hay Fever and the Arts Festival
This is The Book made by the participants at my Visual Journaling workshop in April. Well done all involved, it’s fabulous 🙂
Hello friends!
I hope all is good in your part of the world, here things are fine. The Arts Festival started on Friday evening with a lovely classical concert at St Thomas Heritage Centre. The Heritage Centre is actually a big, old disused church and it has been opened up for the week for the Arts Festival. An art exhibition has been curated there portraying various artists’ interpretations of aspects of the town’s history it’s called Chalk Talks.
Yesterday morning we had the grand opening of Reading Spaces in our local library, the exhibition includes a page turning machine; scrolls which reach from the ground floor to the first floor and are turned by rotating a wheel on the side; a beautiful book made by the reading group and the visually impaired group – this book has embossed pages instead of words, so it’s tactile and tells the story of Little Red Riding Hood, there is also an amazing installation made from old books, lightbulbs, corks and windmills, a reading nest for small children made of wicker, there is so much there you really need to go and see it youself, failing that visit the Ryde Arts Festival website. Upstairs at the library the gallery is full of art contributed by local artists which is amazing!
There was a big Art Parade through the town yesterday afternoon, many local schools and groups participated and the theme was art and artists. There were some great costumes and the weather stayed warm and sunny (for a change) 🙂
The Never Ending Story exhibition also opened at the Depozitory yesterday and it features the art of Lucia Para, who has created beautiful canvases which all seem to tell their own story. Visitors are invited to write the stories they see in the images and post them into little bird boxes provided.
This exhibition also includes the work produced at my three workshops.
Hopefully above you can see the movie of the book produced at my Introduction to Visual Journaling workshop held in April. YouTube has been causing me lots of problems today, making the images look fuzzy. It’s been VERY annoying. If the images look fuzzy to you, as they might if you view full screen, you need to click on the little gear icon at the bottom of the screen and change the resolution, then go back to the beginning and restart the movie. I found it worked best for me set at 480p but you may have to play around with it.
The exhibition also includes the Matchbox Mementos made the Foyer, the Family History Shrines made by Ryde Social Heritage Group members and some of my journals.
Yesterday evening there was a Chalk Talks Salon at the Heritage Centre with music, poetry and performance where the artists opened and explained the exhibition, it was a great evening.
Today I’ve had a day off, which was fortunate as I woke up with a very sore throat, at first I thought I was coming down with a cold, but the constant sneezing and eye-streaming has made me realise it’s Hay Fever. Today has probably been the loveliest day of the year so far, the sort of day when you shouldn’t be stuck indoors, but that’s where I’ve been most of the day battling with YouTube! This is the first time I’ve had Hay Fever this year and I’m hoping it will pass soon.
Have a good week everyone and I’ll see you soon
Big love
AJ 🙂
I need some ME time!
Hello friends
The local Arts Festival starts this Friday and it’s been a hectic few weeks for me.
I did the workshops at The Foyer, 4 evening workshops over 4 weeks. It doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but besides the actual evenings I was preparing stuff for the class in my free time. Apart from one of the participants the few other people who attended seemed to be lacking in ideas or confidence to try things and I found it really hard to motivate and inspire them. I am so out of touch with the younger generation. But finally we got just enough matchboxes finished to go into the exhibition, it was fun but hard work.
I also did a workshop with my friends from Ryde Social Heritage Group and we made Family History Shrines. To do the one day workshop took me several days preparation. The participants in this workshop were much more engaged, creative and easy to work with. I just needed to take them through the steps in creating the shrines and they threw themselves into it with enthusiasm. That was really a lot of fun. We have 10 lovely shrines in the exhibition.
I’ve also been finishing off the Art Journal book we made at my very first workshop in April and that too is in the exhibition. I failed at creating the ebook but I think I have succeeded in making the book into a video. I am going to try and post it on YouTube next week.
The Ryde Arts Festival website is finally up and running (a bit late!) and along with a couple of friends I have been trying to keep it updated with information.
On top of that I have had to prepare a speech and presentation I am giving at a conference in London early in July.
Finally things are all coming together and I am feeling relieved. Starting on Friday evening when the Arts Festival Opens it’s going to be a busy week, but I am looking forward to seeing all the various forms of art and listening to the music that is being created for the event.
I just occurred to me the other day that for the last few weeks I haven’t really done much creative activity just for myself and I am really beginning to miss it. I need to somehow find some ME time and get back in to the Flow of just creating in my journals for the sheer joy of it.
Fortunately I have plenty of art that I did previously but haven’t shared with you so I’m not going to run out of things to post any time soon 🙂
The page above is from my 6×6 board book journal on Circles of Wisdom. That quote totally resonates with me and I am pleased to say I am becoming a much more confident and contented person and artist. It no longer bothers me if the art I create is not brilliant or appreciated by others because I realise that just being creative is more important than the end result.
I hope you all have a great week and I’ll see you soon.
Big love
AJ 🙂
AJ's Art Journaling 