Wrapping up for now...

Here are some miscellaneous thoughts about my IFJM 2014 project. There are additional wrap-up posts which can be displayed by clicking on the "2014 FJ Wrap-up" link just below this post.

An advantage of doing something every day rather than doing more at one time but only some days is that I feel different on different days so there is more variety.

My character several times came up with creative solutions when I was having trouble with an entry. This means that I am capable of coming up with creative solutions.

When I look back at journals I've done, they typically make me glad that I've done them whether or not I particularly enjoyed doing them at the time. This is in contrast to looking at individual pieces of art later because I usually don't like them any better than when I did them.

Even simple sketches or bits of ephemera can really add a lot to a page.

I still haven't completely figured out why I have creative blocks doing art-related activities that I don't seem to have in other creative activities but my 2014 IFJM project has given me some new avenues to explore.

Guilt?

In the past few years I've tried a variety of visual art activities but haven't enjoyed doing them as much as I'd expected to and as much as I'd like to.

In thinking back about what felt different when I was creating my 2014 fake journal as opposed to when I've done other types of art-related creating, I realized that I hadn't experienced a certain special type of guilt that I typically feel. At first I thought maybe it was simply because I was aware that my making the fake journal could possibly be useful to certain other people. But I quickly remembered that I don't typically feel guilty simply because an activity isn't useful.

But then I had an insight. I suspect that this guilt only occurs when I know I could be doing something more useful than whatever I am doing. In other words, when I'm trying to create art, I'm apparently aware at some level that I'm wasting limited resources—my creativity, my intelligence, my ability to focus, my ability to learn new things, etc.—that I've used in the past to do something I have judged to be useful. This concern isn't relevant when I'm doing something like watching TV because then I'm not wasting these limited resources. That is, I do accept that I can only do so much that's useful at any one time.

Here is a link to a summary of a related discussion titled Creativity: Do You Feel Guilty for Being an Artist? Many of the commenters said things along the lines of art is hard or art is important. Here is one artist's comment that resonated with me:

Bridges, buildings, roads, the fabric of our world needs artists. Some work with paint, or stone or steel, others work with math, sound and genes. No, I don't feel guilty about being as artist, as such. I feel guilty that I have created so little when the world needs so much.

I'll be very interested to read your comments on this question.

Staying Seated

I finished my fake journal yesterday and am happy to say I did one entry every day in April and the journal came out much better than I'd hoped. (This post explains the journal.) There are probably several complex reasons why this worked as well as it did that I will need to think more about to understand. However there was this very obvious one: a strict limitation on materials. Since working on my fake journal only required two items, i.e. the physical journal itself and a writing implement, there was never any need to go look for either something essential I'd forgotten before I could start or something extra I'd just suddenly decided later that I couldn't get along without. (I did several times print or cut out something to glue onto a journal page but I did this in such a way that it didn't affect the time spent writing.)

Typically when I try to do any art activity including art journaling, I spend more time hopping up and down and looking for stuff than I spend actually working. (I should note I'm not usually this way when doing other creative activities.) I've tried limiting materials but this hasn't worked very well for me in the past. There are of course numerous other approaches that have the potential to improve this situation. I hope to use the momentum from my IFJM project to discover which of these approaches work best for me.

April 19th Entry

This page was about remembering how much fun it was when my father brought gifts for my sisters and me when he returned from a trip. I still have one of them: a small toy stuffed poodle. I lent the poodle to my character (who noticed that the poodle is missing its left eye!) and she traced around it with pencil at the bottom of the page where she had finished writing and then decorated it. The orange stamped images are wrapped gifts (from a set of Christmas stamps) that my character thought went with the text. (You can tell the actual size from the quad ruling which is five squares to the inch.)

April 15th Entry

I emailed the above picture of a vintage ad that I'd found on the web to my character and asked her to use it as a prompt for the memory I wanted to share for the April 15th entry in my 2014 Fake Journal. She'd already printed it out and glued it to the page before she called me.

Here's a copy of an extract from her summary of what I told her when she called.

...her father often told her that when she was born he'd promised his parents (whom he greatly admired) that S would never smoke.

S said that always made her proud & feel special & she thought she was obligated by that promise. She said she's often since wondered why she had such a positive reaction rather than being rebellious.

She was slightly rebellious her freshman year when she went to an out-of-state college where almost everyone -- including her -- lived in single-sex dorms. She bought a box of Vogue* cigarettes! She remembers the pretty colored papers & gold tips & she thinks a dark flat box -- "distinctive slide case" which she carried in her purse.

I probably should have mentioned that I also loved and admired my father's parents, i.e. my paternal grandparents. They were quite young when my father was born so I had them for a long time; neither of them died until after I was married and both of my children were born.

As best as I can remember I didn't smoke more than two packs of cigarettes the entire time I was in college. (I graduated in 1962.) I've probably smoked no more that half a pack since them. I've definitely never been smoker for which I will always be very grateful.

Here's a scan of part of the above extract as it appeared in the journal.

April 1st Entry

This is a sketch and a bit of the text from the first entry in my 2014 Fake Journal.

My IFJM 2014 Journal Choice

When I decided to participate in IFJM 2014, I wanted everything to be as easy as possible so of course I planned to choose a journal I already had. When I opened the drawer where I keep most of my new and partially-used journals, I was delighted to find this marble cover—80 sheet composition book that I'd forgotten about. I'd bought it when we were on vacation last fall when I saw it in one of those drug stores that sells everything and just had to have it. I had only used the first dozen pages for a trip diary.

It turned out to be perfect for my IFJM project! It's a No. 77227 hard-cover sewn [!] 5x5 Quad Ruled 9.75x7.5 in. rounded corner notebook made in the U.S.A. by Roaring Spring Paper Products. It opens flat. The sheets are sturdy but very thin so almost anything except pencil or ballpoint pen bleeds through. Nonethless they feel lovely and the pages make a cheering noise when you turn them. I really liked this size: large enough to put quite a bit on a page if you want to but small enough that a half-filled page doesn't look empty.

I wish I'd discovered this notebook sooner because I like it better than any other notebook I've used for written journaling. I was surprised how freeing and enjoyable it is to write on quad-ruled paper. Another surprise was to learn that I much prefer to write in a sewn notebook with tape binding than to write in a spiral notebook.

I understand a lot better now why Roz puts so much emphasis on the choice of a journal and provides so much detail about all the different aspects and possibilities. It makes more of a difference than I would have expected to look forward to using a particular journal.

Surprising Positive Aspects of Writing One's Own Thoughts As Someone Else

The story behind my fake journal is that my character friend phones me to have me tell her a single (real) memory which she writes in the journal. This in itself supplies a useful structure. My friend is being so nice that I don't want to let her down. We've agreed that one memory a day is sufficient which creates a reasonably short time frame and avoids my feeling I haven't done enough. But what has turned out to be most interesting and helpful is the following effect on my writing.

I've been imagining that in talking with my character I tell her as much or as little as I feel like about the day's memory and she is, of course, able to ask questions if something isn't clear. (Possibly she jots notes when I'm talking; I don't know.) Anyway, she writes each day's journal entry after the phone call which means she summarizes what I've said and doesn't feel the need to go into excruciating detail (after all she doesn't know all the other thoughts this memory might bring up) or to add unecessary explanations.

Two other aspects of the story have also been helpful. One is that the fake journal isn't intended to be a finished project but, rather, notes for a "memory book" to be made later. The other is that sometimes my character chooses to do a bit of internet research to get some background information about something I've mentioned and that keeps me from being concerned about surfing instead of writing. However, what's been most surprising and valuable is the ease of writing as though summarizing what someone else has told me and about which I have little or no additional information.

The "J" in IFJM Is for Journal, Isn't It?

In my last post I suggested that the key reason for my failure to carry out my two previous ideas for IFJM was that both ideas were really designed to get me started on an exercise habit, not a journaling habit. Of course, a close second as a reason for failure was that I had been thinking of using IFJM as a means of resolving several "issues" (including not exercising enough) I was feeling guilty about.

Yesterday on the IFJM blog Roz posted a wonderful piece that talks about how to deal with issues. She advocates dealing with them directly, not wallowing in them. She also talks about the value of skills-based projects. Her whole piece is definitely worth reading and thinking about.

Much of the specific advice on the IFJM blog is, of course, directly related to journaling: choice of physical journal, choice of media, choice of character, etc. But there's also a lot of excellent advice that's relevant to other aspects of life.

I haven't given up on developing a better exercise habit. Who knows, IFJM may end up helping after all.

P.S. I was thinking about the question as why would one want to develop a journaling habit and it reminded me of the kinds of questions students often ask.

Student. Why do I need to study trigonometry? Teacher. You need it for calculus. Student. But I'm never going to study calculus.

There really are things that are worth learning or doing that you can't appreciate or understand the reasons for until you've learned them or done them so you often have no choice but to follow the advice of people you trust.

Two Failed Ideas for Fake Journal Projects!

Here's some notes I found on my computer of an idea I'd had for 2013 IFJM that never got off the ground. None of this ever happened.

Roz Stendahl's blog is one of my favorites so I've been aware of IFJM for several years. However, I never thought before that making a fake journal would be something I'd want to do. You'll never guess how I got started. A few weeks ago my neighbor Barb told me she was depressed because she's gotten even more out-of-shape than usual because of her back problems. When I asked her more about it, I found out that last summer her Physical Therapist had suggested that she walk on a treadmill very, very slowly but she admitted that, even though she has a very nice treadmill and thought it was a good idea, she'd only done it a few times at the therapist's and never even once at home.

That's when I had my great idea. I've been feeling at least as guilty about my addiction to reading art blogs, to buying art books, and, especially, to buying materials that I don't use as Barb has about not using her treadmill. So I asked Barb whether she thought it might help her if I were to make her a little datebook where she could keep track of her progress on the treadmill. Once she understood that she'd be helping me, she agreed to try it. We decided to start with just one week and Barb chose Monday, April 1 as the first day.

So I made this one-week book and give it to her before the week started. I decorated and dated the pages but left some room for Barb to put whatever she wanted. I thought that since I'd made this gift she'd feel guilty if I'd already done my part and her goal would be to add 30 seconds to her treadmilling a day every day for a month.

Gee, I wonder why this idea never off the ground? As you can probably see, my intent was to think like two characters who were both feeling guilty but for different reasons! I was to think like Barb and record my real walking on my real treadmill following my real P.T.'s advice and I was also to think like the neighbor who'd written the above introduction and was making and decorating the datebooks to be used as exercise journals.

What's even more silly if that's possible is that this idea is a simplification of the one I'd had the year before that also never went anywhere. In the earlier one the instigator was a mother who had just gotten her daughter—who'd moved back home after graduating from college—a part-time job as a personal trainer for Barb. The daughter was to use her smartphone to email her mother each day a description of Barb's progress plus photos of Barb's exercise equipment (or whatever). The "photos" were to give her mother something to sketch in the fake journal (to go along with the text of the "emails") since her mother was feeling guilty about not taking Roz's advice about practicing sketching in addition to feeling guilty about not using her art materials!

P.S. I'm certainly not blaming Roz's convoluted 2011 Fake Journal for my ideas because she's never ever said anything about feeling guilty!

Anne

My 2014 IFJM character friend Anne, who is only a few years younger than me, is a lovely person. She's kind and gentle and thoughtful. She's very creative: she's an excellent photographer; she sews; she's a fabulous cook. She's also very organized.

Anne knew that we'd just had two wonderful 100th birthday celebrations for my father. One was a grand open house for friends, neighbors, and former colleagues that was held in a beautiful room at a nearby arboretum and the second, a few days later on his actual birthday, was a family dinner held in a private dining room at an inn where our family had celebrated special occasions before. (My amazing younger sister spent months arranging both of these.) When I told Anne that my father had died, she offered to make me a memory book. (She'd apparently made one for another friend of hers, not someone I know, and I have no idea what that one was like.)

Anne of course knows that most of us have mixed memories of loved ones but she said that I might want to capture some of the happy ones I have of my father. I was hesitant about how to do this until she suggested that she'd make a quick phone call to me every day and ask for one memory. She then grabs the closest writing instrument and jots down her summary of what I've told her in a composition book she had on hand that happened to have only a few pages already written on. She's also been adding sketches and ideas for the memory book which she plans to make when IFJM is over.

The Significance of Fake Reality

Although I've been reading about International Fake Journal Month (IFJM) for several years, this is the first year I'm participating. I haven't yet decided how much I want to write about my fake journal but the experience of the six journal entries so far reminded me of a very enjoyable but unusual IFJM-related experience I had last year when Roz, the instigator of IFJM, asked her readers to send in collage material that her character might choose to use in her fake journal. .

I sent in a few old canceled postage stamps and I believe it was the real Roz who opened my letter, checked the items, and kindly mailed me the 2013 IFJM button with her portrait of a French Bulldog and last year's motto: "Embrace the Fake."

In any case, her character did use my material. I know this because Roz made a video where she paged through the journal (which is awesome) and I saw my stamps on one of the pages!

Seeing the stamps I'd sent appearing in the video was a fun but also surreal experience. How did my real stamps end up in a virtual representation of an apparently actual fake journal produced by a character Roz created? I plan to explore this question further in a wrap up once the 2014 IFJM is over.

NOTE All of my 2014 IFJM posts will be displayed by clicking on the IFJM link after the word Labels: just below this post or any of my other posts with the same link.

Inspired By Ellen

After I watched Ellen's videos I went to her site and discovered her decorated file folders. What a terrific idea. Why didn't I think of that? Since I use a lot of manila file folders for organizing all kinds of papers anyway, decorating these will be a great way to try new techniques and also to use up leftover supplies that might otherwise go to waste.

With that in mind, I decided to use the ideas from the video to decorate a folder instead of creating an art journal page.

I really liked the control I got by using a brayer instead of an old credit card to apply the background paint. (The scan doesn't show the multiple colors very well.)

Unfortunately, since I didn't have any of Ellen's stamps, I used one I'd tried to carve myself. When I finished the stamping, I discovered several things I'd do differently another time. First, if I'd staggered the rows as in the video, the stamped design would have fit better. Second, a more open stamp would have revealed more of the background and been more interesting. Finally, my stamp didn't work as the basis for the stamped and cut-out collage. I ended up discarding what I'd tried and collaging on a few die cuts instead.

I used some old gift wrap paper for the frame strips and you can see I did shape it a bit differently just to experiment. I used a number of different colors of Inktense pencils to outline the strips and I love the look I got from softening the lines with a water brush. I also like how the set-in frame gives a different effect from a border that goes to the edges of the page.

I still need more practice with my lettering but at least it is easy to read!

I really enjoyed decorating a folder as a way of trying something new. I wasn't concerned about trying to be original on my first go nor about whether I might not like the end result.