Visual Journaling in Movie

I'm one of those frugal people who waits for movies to come out on video, and in pre-Netflix days I would even wait for them to go off the new releases list so they would be even less expensive.

So it was that I watched The Manchurian Candidate the other night. I'm talking about the 2004 version, not the 1963(?) original with Lawrence Harvey and Angela Lansbury. Two things struck me:

one - it avoids the "obvious" enemy and still seems plausible
two - the visual journaling shown where one of the characters is trying to come to terms with being brainwashed

There! I've said what I wanted to say without giving away any surprises.

Am I the only one to notice?

Okay, so how do you use the scissors if you don't already have scissors to cut the plastic loop that's holding them all together?

typoGenerator

This is the program that generates "posters" by taking your text, matching it to images found through Google Images, and randomly generating typography and colors and background.



typoGenerator

This should take you to the program and to the piece I just created, "whatever it takes" which is a hopefully inspirational phrase I put into a paper poster this morning which is taped to my wall. But it needs work, as in art or color, to be finished.

The real me???

You Are An INFP

The Idealist You are creative with a great imagination, living in your own inner world.Open minded and accepting, you strive for harmony in your important relationships.It takes a long time for people to get to know you. You are hesitant to let people get close.But once you care for someone, you do everything you can to help them grow and develop. In love, you tend to have high (and often unrealistic) standards.You are very sensitive. You tend to have intense feelings. At work, you need to do something that expresses your personal values.You would make an excellent writer, psychologist, or artist. How you see yourself: Unselfish, empathetic, and spiritual When other people don't get you, they see you as: Unrealistic, naive, and weak

What's" Your Personality Type?

1 + 1 + 1

Read about Kal Barteski's 1 + 1 + 1 challenge in her own words here:


http://lovelife.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/05/one_and_one_and.html

I have actually got on and done this. Of course, looking back at her blog I started second guessing myself -- I'm actually quite pleased with the art part, but I don't think I've done a terribly good job of visualizing my future. But then OTOH I realized today that if I keep revising and revisiting a year, a month, and a day could go by and I'd still be tinkering!

So my letter is sealed up inside the artwork. It's wearable art, which means it's NOT wearable, or at least not washable until July 3, 2008, because of the letter. And it's almost like one of my morning pages, I started jotting thoughts yesterday, was interrupted, and from yesterday to today various things happened which could possibly affect my future. Life as a recycled teenager can be exhausting!

Weird, funny

This is a page from my gluebook, done yesterday! The map is a genuine result from Yahoo maps which I think was trying to tell me something about venturing into the wilds of north Scottsdale. It comes complete with the little caveat about doing a reality check and making sure the road is still there. I knew it was a good idea to save that page -- certainly a better idea than using it to navigate.

Maps fascinate me and I'm working on a larger mixed media spread with maps which will have to be photographed since it's too big for the scanner.

Today I worked on the 1+1+1 challenge. That needs a few finishing touches and to be photographed also.

Open virtues -- not always easy!

I've been using the Virtues project cards to pick a virtue for each day and week. Out of 100 virtues, the 11 in the lower drawing appealed to me as being open and expansive -- others are self-discipline, perseverance, orderliness, which are more of a struggle for me. But even the "open" or right-brain virtues don't equate to a free pass to goof off. I found it remarkably hard, even depressing, the first time I pulled the joyfulness card. I felt guilty that I'm not more appreciative of the truly great things I have in my life, and guilty that I'm not more on top of things so that I could afford to relax and be joyful.

This may all sound very New Age-ish, but really it isn't. The author of A Pace of Grace, who started the Virtues Project with her husband and brother, takes care to relate her thinking to various faith traditions. I pick a virtue each day for that day, and it is remarkable how they relate to what is going on in my life. And they are all virtues, so practising any one of them couldn't be harmful.

Distrust Straight Borders!

This is an imaginary colonized continent whose rulers have been busy ruling by drawing straight lines with no understanding of what is on the ground, where the rivers run, which groups live where, whether travel is possible. Maps with too many straight lines should not be trusted; those who ruled the lines are imposing themselves on the land.

At long last, a Chameleon appears!

The chameleon is one of my personal symbols because the chameleon can fit in anywhere. Okay, I realize the reality is not as dramatic as the art, but that's artistic license, folks!

Fitting in anywhere has been one of the guiding principles of my life and it's a family trait that goes back over at least 4 generations -- in the branch of the family that has one ancestress from Greenland who married an English whaler and moved to the east coast of England -- so perhaps that trait even goes back hundreds of years.

Pet Food Paranoia

Our cats (Cookie above and Chloe, left) are doing so well that the vet asked what we feed them -- the friend who could no longer keep Chloe turned us on to Eagle Pack and they started on the kitten food and moved up to the adult cat formula, supplemented with Feline Greenies and occasional treats like chicken, crab, or tuna (never a whole meal though!)

These cats are healthy and also well behaved, unlike other cats in my past who would push wrapped food off the table to check out if it might just be cat food, even if it was chocolate cake! I think it's because they are not missing any trace elements.

As the current news story grew in the media and more and more companies were recalling their products, I checked out both Eagle Pack http://www.eaglepack.com/ and www.FelineGreenies.com, neither of them have been recalled.

My firstborn, ever the marketer, is going "Where's their press releases? Why aren't they getting the good news out?"

The man at Tempe Feed & Tack said none of the products they carry have been recalled, which is pretty impressive.

This reminded me of the two months I spent in England in 2005. No, I wasn't eating cat food! But there was a scare re Sudan One red dye in chili powder that had been imported and sold to food processors, where it proceeded to turn up in Worcester sauce, baked beans, frozen shepher's pie, and hundreds of other goodies, you name it! I mean, how many times do we see "spices and flavorings" at the tail end of the ingredient list.

We just found out that Fritos and Doritos contain pork enzymes in the cheese flavored products. I have a nasty suspicion that other brands would too but we just KNOW about Fritos and we don't know about the others.

Then there's the cheery message on the Japanese pickled ginger we were inhaling with the sushi an enterprising family member made by hand:

"Use of this product may be hazardous to your health. This product contains saccharine which has been determined to cause cancer in laboratory animals."

And saccharine is the second ingredient, after ginger and before water!

Well, at least the cats stuck with the crab. Wonder how hard it would be to pickle our own ginger?

Good advice

. . . but can be hard to take!

I used a petal brush in Twisted Brush and printed a hard copy, then stamped the words on, using a bright purple letter N, which I then softened using EZ Tintz in whitewash. I also softened the bottom edge and around the dark purple line where the petal crossed over itself.

Was just bursting for the EZ Tintz to arrive -- of course now I want the whole set.

Visual Chronicles

Have been reading "Visual Chronicles" and working through some of the exercises, not very systematically.

This collage expresses how I feel today.

For a variety of reasons.

Now I'm thinking about the expression "Huis Clos" which is a legal term in French and was also the title of a Sartre play and I can't remember what it was called in English.

Considering energy and frustration levels it's amazing I can do anything remotely creative!

Better backgrounds are in the future...

I'm proud of the illuminated capital and the floaty moth like infinity symbol on the table created by playing around with twisted brush.

Visual Chronicles -- Life changing book!

I discovered this book by Linda Woods and Karen Dinino.

It's published byNorthlight Books in 2006

The full title is

Visual Chronicles: the no-fear guide to creating art journals, creative manifestos and altered books

They have a non-intimidating approach to art journals and show you how to break it down into little steps and that a journal doesn't have to be like a soap opera narrative. Nor does it necessarily have to be in a bound book. It could be in a box, or tied together with an elastic band or a ribbon.

The website is sistersonsojourn.com
and full of neat stuff from the book and teasers about the next one, due out September 2007.

There is an area with a Yahoo group, which of course I joined.

Find I am seeing things differently and perhaps this will give me an outlet for all the ephemera (aka JUNK according to some!) I accumulate so easily and can't bear to discard.

I now have a large sketchbook which is filling up with collage (mostly) artworks, and a box of index cards with prompts, colors, and notes about supplies.


The index cards aren't mentioned much in the book but I am the index card queen.

I have one old box full of housekeeping prompts from when we had a B&B, with chores detailed room by room, creative ideas (hmm I will have to revisit them, some of them must still be good), quotes from the Qu'ran, etc.

Then from my recent years in school there are thousands of cards with notes about medical terminology, spelling, trivia, steno outlines, etc. It's fun to pull out a random card and discover that the original topic bears some relevance to what I'm writing on it this time.

E.g. I found an ice blue card with

ANWR = Arctic National Wildlife Reserve

written on it, and the prompt I was jotting before it escaped was about the heat.

BTW we finally caved this aft and put the a/c on!

Eye Tiles

Now if I could just remember how to rotate pix.

Challenged myself to a random act of creativity every day for February. This is Feb 1.

Some may not be amenable to taking photos