I’ll tell you a story
of things that smell lovely
Jasmine, patchouli
I love you truly
Post note: The poem is from my vault of nursery rhymes written in the 70’s – 80’s that I’ve recently been re-writing. The photo is from a Woman’s Wellness Week bookmaking workshop sometime in the early 90’s and is a page [...]
20 custom-made leather bound journals, some bulging to a height of half a foot, tell a visual story of a personal evolution. “I don’t think of my life as more interesting than someone else’s but I took the time to record it in an interesting way. The themes are universal,” said 30 year-old Josh Copus, [...]
Having just come off a dizzying roller coaster ride of the written word, I went to an open house art day at Rosemary’s house to play in the world of non-verbal fairytale, to tell a deeper story with image and color. There was sunlight shining in on the dining room table, [...]
AKA – I know the post that should be here, but I haven’t written it yet, so in the meantime, here are some collages to look at.
Death by Computer
Dancing on Wall Street’s Grave
Stop in the Name of Love
Trees Don’t Grow on Money Either
When I was a girl I had a dream that [...]
I suspect that some of my friends are planning an intervention. I’ve recently had to cancel a few dates with them because I’ve been so busy covering stories, taking pictures and writing, and generally getting so wound up that I have to rest in between each activity and every chance I get.
Excitement can be a [...]
I write poetry by ear like a musician who doesn’t read notes can still play music. ~ Colleen
Some people make quilts, stitch blocks of designed fabric together. Others mix colors and paint. The theme of my creative life has been finding my voice and using it through speech and the written word. [...]
My intention is to immerse myself in the experience of aging in a similar way that I immersed myself in the experience of losing my brothers when they died in 2001. Aging and loss are inevitable life events that I can’t change or avoid. The best I can do is approach them with [...]
If I were writing a fairytale about my life it would be one about a heroine princess who goes off to be alone. In the quiet of time spent alone she would discover special fruits with special powers, winds that talk, and stars that sing. At night she would sit by [...]
“The words seem to be pronounced in my head, but with no one speaking them.” Amy Lowell
My mother and I have an ongoing conversation through the clipped newspaper articles we send each other. It’s the only comfortable way we can “talk” about politics because our views are so vastly [...]
My introduction into the world of archetypes came when I was a girl by way of fairytales and nursery rhymes. To this day Rumplestilskin and the Snow Queen repeatedly show up in my poetry. When I first saw the kiln at the university where my potter son was a student, memories were [...]
A collage works in the same way a dream does. It’s a visual snapshot of various symbolic images that can bypass the brain’s process time and convey a lot of information at once. ~ Colleen
1. The above and the following are a few selected photos of my Asheville Potter son’s collage journal. [...]
I can’t find my working notebook or an available empty one, so I started this on the back of a used envelope. Now at the keyboard, I’m wearing a bright orange Halloween cat cap with black ears that stick up because having it on helps me to keep my sense of humor. My [...]
In the spring of 2000 when my Asheville potter son, Josh was 20 years old, he came across an old journal he had kept when he was 16.
“Everything in it was silly. I hated it,” he said, in answer to the question I posed ‘when did you start journal collaging and why?’
“I wondered who was [...]
AKA: I call it The Magical History Tour.
I haven’t made a collage since I started blogging. And what is a blog, but a blank page to fill up with images and words that tell a story?
Some pages from my eldest son Josh’s collage journals were exhibited in an art show this past March [...]
Warning: One house isn’t big enough for 3 collage artists.
All forms of record keeping interest me. Since receiving my first “Dear Diary” when I was 10 years old, I’ve gone on to keep photo albums, dream journals, baby books, and scrapbooks.
I’ve always enjoyed making collages, but when my Asheville potter son, Josh, began [...]
