On December 29th (2022), I received the first print of a magazine I designed and had printed by Blurb.com. Today (January 6th, 2023), I received the revised version that looks great!
The project work began December 4th and took about three weeks from start to submission for printing. The finished magazine is a compilation of 316 pastel drawings paired with their respective 3-line (or more) poems done between 2003 and 2004. Since there were only 226 poems written, some of the images don't have them.
If you're wondering when I had the time to do this work back then, it was after work and on weekends. Maybe you're also wondering what prompted my interest in doing the pastel/poem work in the first place. At that time, I was transiting a lengthy grief journey and had developed an interest in Expressive Arts Therapy certification. It just so happened that I found a program for it and took an introductory class. One of the activities in that class was creating a drawing (as an internal check-in) and then writing something creative about the drawing. I found this exciting...so I decided to continue to do it on my own.
The pastels were drawn intuitively for the most part. The titles of the pieces and their poems, on the other hand, depended on the imagery and how I was feeling. The writings ranged from exploring questions, making observations about nature and emotions to describing events and included some humor on occasion.
I loved working in the pastel medium then--making marks on the page, applying colors with my fingers--sometimes vigorously, and seeing what developed. I took pictures of each piece with my first digital camera (a WONDERFUL gift from my husband). Along with keeping the original pastel, the photos of them and the poems--all in separate places, I also kept some notes about what was going on at the time (e.g. left/right hand used to do the drawing, the Iraq War -- that was underway, etc.) plus kept a digital file with the title of each piece and the date it was completed.
In designing the magazine, I reread some of my journal entries in order to write an Introduction and Afterword. The magazine has two indices. One is alphabetical that reflects the order of the images. The other is chronological, so a reader can trace the order the works were created in.
Why did I do this project now? In one word--integration. My primary idea was to pair the images with their poems, kept separately over the years, in one place. The magazine format seemed perfect. What the project became, in addition, was a process of accepting and honoring what has passed and moving forward with greater wholeness and appreciation for the healing power of creativity.
Comments
Post a Comment