Class 1 - Two very good examples of "Being Yourself"

I didn't get to talk about these two very inspiring artists during the class because we were all so busy working on our covers, but since they were part of your handouts, I wanted to mention them now. They're both excellent examples of why it's important to explore your true experience and creatively be yourself in every way you can in your journal. You may not have the ambition to be as public as these two artists, but I can't stress enough how big your reward will be for pushing yourself a bit deeper.

Exhibit A: Lynda Barry

Lynda Barry, engaged in one of her writing workshops. I vividly remember her this way in the class I took, listening intently to what we students had written and giving us her one and only critique: "Good! Good!". I took this to mean: What you are writing is good (and everyone's was), and *that* we were writing was good (and always will be). 

My first encounter with Lynda Barry was with her long-running cartoon "Ernie Pook's Comeek", which appeared weekly in the Georgia Straight. As well as other topics, she chronicles the lives of cousins Marlys, Maybonne and Freddie. To say their childhoods were dysfunctional is an understatement. Maybe that's why I identified so much with her characters since my childhood was dysfunctional as well. Perhaps all of us feel that way. Almost everyone I've ever met seems to feel the same way. Lynda's quirky childlike drawing style draws you in, too. It's like the child in you meets the child in her through her characters.

Reading Lynda's cartoons made me realize that it's possible to have your heart broken and healed at the same time, particularly her book One! Hundred! Demons!, a series of coming of age stories that, while different in their details, felt so familiar to me.

Although best known for her comics, Lynda has gone on to produce a couple of absolutely stunning books for people wanting to explore the nature of BEING through creative drawing and writing.

The first book I found by accident after seeing some of Lynda's work as part of an exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery. I'd gone into Chapters looking for One! Hundred! Demons! and stumbled on What It Is and nearly exploded in spontaneous creative combustion.

Already a fan of her work, I couldn't get home fast enough to start on some of the exercises. I love the combination of stories, plus exercises, plus deep philosophical questioning made with her quirky hand-drawn, hand-painted collage. Pretty much Best Book Ever, at least for me. Here's a little sample:

She now explores these same themes, ideas and exercises as a professor at the University of Wisconsin, and she posts all of her class instructions (as well as what the class gets up to) online in her Tumblr blog for anyone to follow along *for free*. She also published the syllabus of her course, cleverly titled Syllabus, that is well worth a look if you want a more portable workbook.

I love that she is so generous with her work, and that she's finally getting the recognition she deserves for all her hard work (both internal and external). I took a writing workshop with her as part of the Vancouver Writers and Readers Festival and it was magical. To hear and see her in action, here's a lecture she gave called Accessing the Imaginary.

But wait, there's more!

Exhibit B: Teesha Moore

I first met Teesha and her husband Tracy at an art event they hosted for over 12 years called Artfest. It was a gathering of over 500 people (art students and teachers) that took place is a re-purposed military base that's now a Washington State park. We slept in barracks, we ate in a dining hall and went to crazy creative classes in training rooms. Each year I went I took 3 day-long classes with working artists whose passion for their art was infectious. I learned mold-making, bookbinding, paper clay, jewelry making and many others. But beyond the actual classes, their event connected me to an artistic circle of friends that lived on beyond Artfest itself. In particular, a group of us formed the retreat group I currently belong to and we still go away at least twice a year to make art together.

But (to bring this back to journalling), I think Teesha's journalling is responsible for starting more "ordinary" people on art journalling than anyone I know over the last 20 years. Not only is her personal style unique and colourful, but her constant encouragement and positivity for everyone around her has coaxed many people who don't think of themselves as "artsy" out into the light.

I'm always inspired by her use of bright colours, and her wonderful inventiveness with collage. She often focuses on the colour, texture and pattern of the images she finds instead of "what they are" and that frees up her options for her pages. For years, Teesha and Tracy turned many of their quirky images into their own rubber stamps and collage sheets and they are still among my favourites to use in my own artwork.

Apart from the colour on her pages, and the inventive collage, I want to mention Teesha for another reason: she journals her TRUTH on her pages - out there, in the open, even if she's sharing the page with all of us. Much of the written detail on her pages is quite small, so it gets overlooked, but I think it's inspiring how much she fearlessly puts down on paper. She's a very good example of how not to judge yourself in the process. Her pages embody exactly what we all need to hear: play, experiment, do, make, enjoy, and most importantly: don't judge. Let your life and your art out into the light of day and learn all you can about who you are, who you were and who you want to be.

For more great stuff, check out these links on her website:

• A gallery of her work
• Her blog
• She also has a subscriber site with extra things like videos (she does an overhead step by step through her journal pages with music), you can watch a sample video here. Even though the video is of a black and white page, it's fund to see how she moves pieces around, how she adds shading (pan pastels) and how she does the lettering in the wording (not always in order).

And here's the handout page to add to your journal!

Hope you've enjoyed meeting two people who haven't been afraid to let their unique voices shine ~ hope they inspire you the way the way they inspire me.

One more post to come for this class ~ I'll give you a slightly larger version of the the Personal Values Exercise, so you can print it out and use it again sometime.

Till next time!

Penelope