This week a new train of thought popped up from some of my previous art journaling pages. I love how art journaling (well, any kind of journaling, or art, for that matter) is like a ball of really lovely hand-dyed fiber with a single loose end…you start pulling, and the ball unwinds and unravels and colors start to show more vividly. What at first looked like just a ball of blue (or green, or yellow, or purple) yarn turns out to be something lovely and variegated and rich and amazing when it’s all unwound. And imperfect. (Which is beautiful.)
Okay, so now I want to go knit. Well, back to my original thought.
My art journaling question this week was: When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
This question came up from my journaling about dreams—ie, what wild and wonderful things did I want to do with my life/creative business? That’s a huge question in itself, so I went backwards a bit and thought about what I dreamed of being when I was younger. There’s something empowering about remembering a time when you didn’t have the layers of reasons and excuses and explanations for why you couldn’t do something: When I dreamed of living in Europe, I didn’t know of any reasons why I couldn’t. By the time I was told all of the reasons why I couldn’t, the possibility was so firmly entrenched in my mind that I simply didn’t believe them.
(And yes, after traveling through the Brussels Airport at age 15, I was forever in love with European airports. For me, they will always be synonymous with glamour and style.)
And I love the idea of fairy tales as a theme—so often associated with childhood…and yet, when you really read a fairy tale as an adult, you notice the themes of adventure and loss and danger and sometimes brutality. Yet very often, a happy ending too.
In this case,when I think of fairy tales, I think of that bridge that crosses the divide between childhood and adulthood—that rite of passage that takes the hero/ine through the woods or across the sea. And that’s a whole other art journaling question, I think.
Enjoy…and happy Wednesday!
