I am a creature of ritual and habit. This should come as no surprise to people who know me, especially my family. I feel grateful during this turbulent time, I have my rituals and habits to lean on. One of these is starting my day with gratitude journaling. What is gratitude journaling? It is my own mash-up of daily pages/stream of conscientiousness journaling and focusing on what I have to be grateful for. Here is taste of how one of my daily pages might look if I focused exclusively on my gratitude as an artist.
- I am grateful to have finished the quilting phase of Sunrise at Minot Beach. Why am I always surprised by how long each phase of making my artwork takes? Looking forward to the next phase, facing.
- I am grateful my current method of basting my quilt sandwich with archival fusible is allowing me to quilt intensely without the typical shrinkage and warping. I was shocked yesterday, while squaring up the quilt to see how true to size and how square the piece is.
- I am grateful for the 30 plus years I have been gifted to create art. No way could I have achieved such precision in the early years. What a difference practice makes.
- I am grateful I have the courage to experiment and put myself out there. My word of the year is BRAVE. The word itself is scary. Being brave is scary. Being vulnerable is scary. Writing this I am reminded it is worth it.
- I am grateful when the challenge was presented to make art daily and post it with #saqa100days, I opted to do this. It felt like an insane thing to do at the time. Yet, it has proven to be a personal silver lining during this period of staying at home. I am a create of ritual and habit. Even so, I am proving I am able to incorporate new ones.
- I am grateful for the community of artists I belong to, both my immediate community and the global community. My inbox is regularly flooded with news of artists making face masks, museums offering virtual gallery tours and podcasts, and many artists offering free or deeply discounted classes.
… And so the list continues until I have filled two pages of my spiral bound notebook. Then it is off to catch up on email, have breakfast with my husband, and get my exercise for the day.
I am linking up with Nina Marie’s Off the Wall Fridays.
Can you explain what product you are using for archival fusing? Thank you!
Mary,good question. I debated about going over the archival fusible again, since I have covered this in previous blogs. Here is the link to my process for basting quilts:
https://www.gwynedtrefethen.com/tips/week-in-review-2019-11-08/
Note the fusible can be used like a web like fusible. It is commonly used to repair textiles by museums. I like it for several reasons. One, it is more affordable than fusible designed for quilters. Two, it comes 60″ wide, so I can cut quilt sized sheets of it.
I love your organization and your participation in the 100SAQA Days.
Julia, very kind of you to say. Seems we have a mutual admiration thing. I’ve followed and admired your work for years. Just saw your entry for this year’s benefit auction. Wowzer! The opera house is fantastic.
And most of all I like your gratefulness. You have a great journal going on there.
I started journaling, or more precisely starting my day with morning pages, approximately 25 years ago. The impetus was a online study group. We worked our way through The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron together. Now I can’t imagine starting my day any other way.