I'm really getting into these pages of my art journal!  Feels like being a kid again, when my favorite things to do were inspired by my best book of childhood, a gift from my daddy bought on a rare out-of-state business trip: Making Things.

My ex-spouse  would quibble with the word "Art" being used so cavalierly, but his voice now is only a faint echo in my head and I'm not listening.

One page involves old patterns for dresses with snippets of color that remind me of the scraps of cotton fabric always under Carlene's sewing machine when she made all our clothes: kettle cloth, seersucker, corduroy, calico, gingham--I just loved the names of those fabrics we bought at McConnels dime store, our source for cloth and patterns. Making this page brought those days back in color.

Another page is about the circus of all things--inspired by a piece of sheet music I found at YeYa's--"Children at the Circus" and a clown photo from my stash of photographs.

At this point in my playing, I'm learning what materials do what.  But I find I'm sort of obsessed with the efforts until a page pleases me.

Pam posted a quotation the other day that speaks to why we make things:

"We don't write, make music paint, dance, make crafts, do carpentry, or garden to have our efforts published and critically admired.  We do it for our souls, to enter a divine dance, to connect ourselves to the heart of things.  Sometimes we cannot save the world, but we can save our own sanity....by nurturing our souls."  Ron Rolheiser.

I'm going to take a break from soul-nurturing and watch the Cohen interview this morning, but then I'll get right back to it.  Here's the first page of my journal: