Online Journaling. 12/8/2010

What is this all about I’m saying to myself. I use to keep a journal pretty consistently. You would be surprised at the kinds of things you forget. Like when I was a kid I use to get mad at my brother when he would eat too much sugar and bounce off the walls. As an adult I know he has a sugar problem, but it wasn’t until I read some of my childhood journals that I realized the problem went deeper than just a bad case of the munchies.

I would always journal to get to the bottom of things. When I was sad or really mad or just very confused about what I was supposed to be doing in the space I called my life at the time. At the end of a free write I would usually come to some conclusion of why I was feeling the way I was or what the real problem was. Often times the conclusion would be that I didn’t know what the problem was to begin with.

I love my journals. I love books. I love the way the cover is hard and protective. I love the feel of the pages under my thumb as I rapidly flip over them. I love the way the penmanship would flow together and fill up the pages. Words melded into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, paragraphs into entries and entries that fill an entire book, all hand written by me. I tell you, I cherish my journals more than most my artwork.

When I was feeling frisky or particularly passionate I would write in a rhythm, I would create words that flowed and produced emotion not necessarily a story of my life. Lust would flow and unopened boxes would be imagined over as Pandora’s and dismantled in life’s most strange mysteries.

This online journaling is a little strange to me. But what is even stranger is the fact that I have not kept up my book journal in the last few years. It’s a pattern. When I’m happy, seeing someone, busy - don’t have copious quantity of down time, I simply don’t write. But this time the boy is not going to go away; projects are not going to diminish. It kind of happens when you buy a house, get married and adopt a puppy. It just doesn’t equate.

My mother use to make notes on her calendar and then sit down once a month to write out the months happenings. She has used the computer for her journaling as far as I can remember, to her it is normal. To me the pen in hand and a cool page underhand is normal and therapeutic.

So here I am with free time and a computer to look like I’m actually working. My day job has its benefits. Like winter, the slow, no work, watch a movie time of year. So I’m going to tackle this journaling thing and take it one step further. I’m going to try journaling with my art in mind.

I’m going to try to bring you into the chaos that is my life. A husband who married me for direction, a house that is almost hopeless to remodel without gutting the entire thing, an art business that I will probably struggle with the rest of my life, and a puppy who is a blur of puffy fur as he pursues the cat in play. And of course a Kitty, who wants nothing but the puppy to die of Distemper like the last one who entered her house.

Welcome to the Henn house, welcome to my studio.