I've been posting flip-throughs of this book project on YouTube: it's a fun way of note-taking on pics as I go. Howwever, I find I want to go back to see some comments with pics and on video, it can be difficult.
The book project is a great loosen-upper for when we get overwhelmed by how to do, what should I do, what should I do next, that gets us back into the spontaneity of creating something -- something we have no idea of where it's going or how it will come out and not being particularly worried about it by being able to just put aside worries and say it doesn't matter right now; I don't have time to think about it, I have 45 seconds to spend on this page and I'm on to the next, and somehow trusting that process. Oh, What process?
Shannon Green's Journaling by 5s is a project in which a 20 page Mixed Media Art Journal is put together in an hour and a half of actual time spent on paper. In 5 15-minute sessions, all 20 pages are dealt with in each session. Time goes into preparation, and the production time is limited to what seems like a breakneck speed in session one and by session 3 or 4, we're working at a relatively relaxed pace, a time chunk we have accustomed ourselves to. Session three is where everyone starts panicking about where it is going and what a mess it is -- not terribly worried because out of 20 pages, a bunch already look pretty good. Holding on to the "I can fix it later ... somehow," develops a self-confidence in that, "Oh well, I'll 'Make It Work'" (Love you Tim Gunn) attitude. When I get to the pens and pencils I'll fiddle with it until it looks good."
It's a study in contrasts
- It doesn't take much time, and it takes a lot of time
- It's very relaxing, and it's quite nerve-racking
- It's open-ended and free, yet it's structured and constraining.
Mixed Media makes me remember our high school art teacher Jon Jancar. He came from Disney studios and worked as a background painter -- in the 40s and 50s, nice color work, nature, and texture. We learned so many techniques in his classes -- ones I am revisiting in the Mixed Media project, remembering the visceral responses to painting over gesso, and washing off paintings and doing them again, and layering washes and inks. We had two great art teachers there at the time. Mary Jane Krumm (Slike) was our design teacher, and she had come out of Sacred Heart and studied under Sister Mary Corita, the pop-art nun. In her classes I remember putting together words and photos from media, recombining them into humorous juxtapositions, reminded of it bu stage 4 of the Journaling by 5s.
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