Journal Project

I brought what I think of as a “craft box” with me to New Mexico — paper, small cutting mat, ruler, my tool rool up. My hope is that I’ll make collages in the evenings while we get the house ready during the day to move my shop. So far I’ve been overwhelmed with house projects, figuring out where to shop for groceries, and just generally getting my bearings.
Then last Friday I looked up the Santa Fe Book Arts Group on the web, and was happy to see that they had their monthly meeting the next day! They were starting a “journal project” that day — much like the 1000 Journals exhibit I wrote about here, except the journals would be rotated among the members rather than left for just anyone to write in. I didn’t have time to get to an art store before the meeting to buy a pre-made book, but remembered my “craft box” had several blank moleskines, including the one to the left, with a haiku from one of my calendars pasted on the front.
Off I went to the meeting. It was quite a large group — I counted over 60 people! Those participating in the journal project were divided into groups of 8 or so. Every 15 days I’m supposed to receive a journal in the mail. The journal owner might have specified a theme for the book (or not), and I am to fill in as many pages as I wish. After 15 days, I send the journal on to the next person on the list, and repeat with the next journal I receive in the mail. I’ve got my first journal already — and the theme is “spangled.” As we’re all just getting organized and some people didn’t have journals finished yet, I have until March 15th to finish my first entry.
This is just what I need to nudge me into making those collages!