::Accepting::

 

This wire word I made for my

wonderful aunt

who chose this word

as hers for the year.

 

To be "accepting" -

it's not an easy place to be,

arms open, palms spread wide,

letting go of what's yours,

or what you wanted to be yours,

and accepting what is...

 

Reality -

hopes and dreams

don't always come to fruition,

lives end too early,

there are bumps and snags in the road,

and we are not always quick to accept

what comes our way

(at least, I know I am not quick to)

yet there is freedom,
I think,

to be found

in "accepting"

. . . . . . 

Art Journal Pages

Pages from my art journaling journey...

(Prompts from left to right, clockwise:  1) My heart is surrounded...  2) I want to... but I don't know how...  3) The secret tool in my toolbox is...  4) It is time for me to...)

 

(Prompts from left to right, clockwise:  1) I am concocting a magic potion... 2) I am standing on... 

3) A little bird is sing to me...  4) I see art in...)

 

(Prompts from left to right, clockwise:  1) I will gift myself with...  2) I am holding out my hand to receive...  3) It feels daunting when I think about  4) Peaceful moment)

 

(Prompts from left to right, clockwise:  1) I am choosing to honor...  2) Focus, flow  3) I have emptied myself of...  4) The ghosts haunting me are...)

 

(Prompts from left to right, clockwise:  1) When I cannot... I feel so...  2) I haven always wanted to...  3) I wish I could be like...  4) My war color paint of choice is...)

 

(Prompts from left to right, clockwise:  1) I feel in pieces when...  2) To stay afloat I will... 

3) I will bubble over....  3) I can gift myself with...)

 

 

(From left to right, clockwise:  1, 2, 4) "You must enter the grays and blues," a quote from a book I read by Natalie Goldberg  3) I want to open the door marked...)

 

 

The art journaling journey has been therapeutic and although I haven't created pages in a while, I plan to continue to do it.  It has brought another layer and element into my journaling process, a process that has much meaning to me as I have been journaling avidly since I was a teenager.  Seeing my pages here helps me to see all that I've learned through the art journaling I have done thus far.  I appreciate all of this.

 

~Brianne

Art Journaling

 

This year has been a year of reawakening for me. 

It started with reading The Artist's Way, and continued with going on photography outings, sculpting words and pendants from wire, and making collages from magazine cutouts.  Creating my blog, this offering here, has opened me up to thinking and seeing in new creative ways.  Another part of this journey has been art journaling which, as an avid journaler, was exciting for me to discover and begin to do.

 

When I won a subscription to The Art Journaler service one day, I was delighted.  Even more so when I received what you see in the following photographs in the mail!

 



I believe that the process of art is powerful.  It opens us up to what lies beneath the surface, and we are able to create meaningful, beautiful creations.  Art changes us, changes our thinking, our perception, and the way we see.  Journaling through art can help you work through what your life is facing in ways that go beyond words.  You can write yourself secret messages, truths that you will hold dear.  There are no rules, which I love. 

The Art Journaler community is a great one to be part of.  You can share your pages with others and see what others have created.  I will post some of my pages here on a next post.  It was fun to receive all these delightful goodies in the mail from the subscription service.  Imagine, as an adult, how fun it is to receive stars, words, hearts, puzzle pieces and such in the mail, in colorfully decorated envelopes, when usually there's no more than bills and junk!?  I think anyone of any age would benefit from art journaling, and can imagine this would have been a great practice to have known as a teenager, too.  Never too late, never too soon!

After the Storm

Hurricane Sandy hit hard just less than two weeks ago,
and our area was one of the many that was without power.
Thankfully, there was no destruction to our home. 
Many trees fell and snapped in half to the right and to the left, as we listened to the winds blow and snuggled together to keep warm.  When we became aware of the extent of the destruction that Sandy wrought, we were devastated.  The Jersey Shore, parts of Queens and Long Island, Staten Island, NY, to name a few...  I found this website that lists ideas of what can be done to continue to help hurricane victims:
What You Can Do To Help Victims of Hurricane Sandy.

We are thankful for great friends who took us in, kept us fed and warm, as their power was back on many days before ours was expected to be.  Being with them was the best way our family could have possibly spent the time, and we have missed them since we returned home Monday morning.

 

 

After the storm, lives return to whatever form of normal they are used to, and I am not one to take pictures of the destruction.  Last year when Hurrican Irene hit, I could not bring myself to photograph the flood waters that covered areas nearby.  As I walked past all of the uprooted and cracked-in-half trees, the pictures I took were these.

The prism effect of light, still shining, and rainbows to be caught when the light is looked at and captured just right.

 

The glistening effect of frost on grass, sparkling glittery colors of the spectrum, reminding me to hope, always hope, for what is to come.