Cover

Since my first entry in the journal was a self-portrait, I decided to do a second self-portrait for my last piece, the cover. I tried to refer to colors that recur throughout the journal. It's acrylic and digital.

Lots of beauty, and some unanticipated ugliness

My husband and I moved into our new house this weekend, so for most of the week I was toying with ideas for making entries about my this new environment -- the house our daughter will (as far as we can know) grow up in. It is the sweetest of houses in a small Minnesota town, and I am so happy here already. Unlike in the Cities, it is utterly silent here at night, and dark. The streets are quiet. Because it's summer, everything is green. And our land has fruit trees on it -- cherry, apple, plum. I even discovered that the land was once owned by the founder of this town, John North, in the 1850s, which is so neat.

Our new town seems like the perfect place to grow up, and I can already imagine our little girl exploring all of the things contained in this house and in this town.

So, basically, this is one of the happiest times of my life, full of hope and excitement and real joy. I've been writing (and drawing) about this wonderful time all week (all summer, really, thanks to the visual journals class), so I decided to do something different for my entries this week. I decided to document (in photos, because that's a medium I knew I could work quickly in, and I had to be cruelly realistic about time management this week) some of the ugly and unpleasant things around me right now, because these "thorns" are temporary -- the boxes will eventually be unpacked, someday we'll replace the horrible linoleum, my studio won't always be a disaster area, the house will get clean. But right now, those things are unattractive and chaotic and stress-causing. I decided to capture some of those things because, unlike my happy family and our plum tree, they will soon disappear.

Here's the first set of images. Gross!

Floor and more

Ugly 1970s flooring, plus a dim and gross corner of the house... the dark side of home ownership!

Moving while trying to be an illustrator

I happened to get a freelance illustration job for one of the big children's magazines -- my most important freelance job so far -- smack in the middle of the busiest time of my life (busiest up until now -- I know it will be even crazier after the baby is born!). I wanted to document the ridiculous state of my new studio as I try to finish the freelance assignment, unpack the basic things we need to survive at the new house, finish my three summer courses, mitigate my pregnancy-related exhaustion by occasionally resting, and keep a sense of humor about all of it!

Three new entries

First, my calendar. I thought about things I took away from my class experience as well as what was happening in my life and, of course, with my pregnancy.












Next, I pursued last week's proposal a bit more. Part of that proposal was to dig deeper into my feelings about the pregnancy and my changing life. To that this week, I read Birthing From Within, which I finally got my hands on this month. That book prompted me to consider the fears that I have about the experience of giving birth in a hospital, so I created an entry documenting those fears, using acrylic paint and Photoshop. I hope that I can begin to address the fears in the coming months by calling them out (and talking to the doctors and my husband and etc). I did redact a couple of them because they were a little too personal to share here.









After my "fears" entry I needed to do something lighter. I switched to watercolor, graphite, and ink, and did a few cute little things that reflect some of the maternal and domestic feelings that seem to just keep getting more intense as the months go by.

Scrawl

As part of my proposal for the remainder of the semester, I said I would write for at least two hours about my experience being pregnant (so far), in order to document some things I don't want to forget, but also to go a little further in exploring my feelings and thoughts during this unique time of my life.

I did write for 2+ hours, and am so glad I did. The long-ish time period compelled me to dig deep for material. When I slowed down, I found myself exploring some ideas that were more difficult and personal. As a result, I felt that the writing was really too personal and special (almost... sacred) to share on the internet (no offense, comrades). So I created this entry that both presents and obscures what I wrote, by superimposing the ten pages of handwritten text. After considering bringing out some words or phrases that I was willing to share, I decided to allow the whole thing to remain sort of veiled and coded, and to exist as one big, shrouded visual form. That is how I feel about the experience of pregnancy, sometimes -- that it is really too special to explain, document, or translate. But everyone always tries anyway, me included.

For the other two entries, I extracted a couple of phrases that are less intimate, but still significant to me. I made some quick (less than 30 min. each) sketches from those, and that's what the other two entries are about.

Pits!

Landscape and narrative seemed like fitting elements for a two-page spread dealing with visual flow. Since I did most of my writing for this week's entries under an oak tree at Lake of Isles, I went ahead and sketched a little version of that scene, taking some text from the writing I did. Sketchy graphite, ink, and marker.