Map Journal: San Miguel Unfolds

I signed up for a creative book making class before I left on a Christmas trip to Mexico in order to have something fun to return to during the rainy winter.  I discovered that the line between an Artist Book and Journal can be blurry.  The class inspired me to make a different kind of travel log. This fold out book made from a San Miguel map more became a journal that brings back a lot of lovely memories.  

Being an inveterate collector of ephmera, first I had the fun of collecting stuff during the trip.  Back in class the challenge wondering how to make a book out of a pile of odd pieces was also fun.  



This fold out form invited the process of layering the pages with paint, adding notes, stitching in inserts, overlaying images and words with colored tissues and stamps. 

Flipping through the pages of this advertising map turned book, puts me right back on the streets in San Miguel Allende.  I remember the color of San Miguels bright buildings, narrow streets and crazy traffic. 

The map shows the path to the Escuela where I took a beginner Spanish class for the umpteenth time. 

The X on the map at Casa Mia Suites recalls our lofty hotel room with the view of the church towers and the sound of their all hours, crazy bells. The map shows the  Parroquia, San Miguel's signature pastel pink church and. I remember the beautiful Jardin at the city center where we spent many happy evenings people watching and enjoying the musica.  

Arts are a daily celebration in San Miguel. with drama, music, and festive ceremonies. 


There are endless galleries and street art 
events. Indian ladies offer their wares on the  sidewalks,    


Between the folds in the book are stitched inserts from La Esquina, the fabulous folk toy museum.



I recall lunch at  La Bibioloteca, the lively library and gringo meet up place. 


  

Folded in the book's pages are memories of Cumpanio the elegant bakery restaurant where we had early morning coffee and afternoon snacks.

The pages spark memories of encounters with the sword wielding insurgentes reinacting the city history and eating delicious chilaquiles at the Centro Cultura.  

I remember my amazement at my first encounter with 10 foot Frieda and Diego in the street. As the evening lights come on these huge puppets animate the streets every night.




The inspiration for a journal created from trip ephemera came from Stephanie Jucker who teaches artist book classes at places like the San Francisco Center for the Book and

our College of Marin. Stephanie made her first book by chance when traveling. She met  some book makers at a street fair and got a quick lesson in making a simple pamphlet.    Insipired,  she gathered papers from her trip into a simple book and used the blank spaces to write notes about her journey.  A painter by calling, she has been fearlessly experimenting with book making ever since. From Stephanie, I've learned that for books to tell a story, they don't need words.   


  

Girlie Journaling

Handbound water color paper make this journal. The cover is heavy handmade paper with paper overlays applied with acrylic medium.

  I have resistance to what I call "girlie journals"...the sort of journals that have pages rife with angst or happy pep talk slogans, dripping with doe-eyed female faces, awash with fluttery lettering, glitter and feathers. The kind of "creative pages" you see that choke Pinterest and give journal keeping, in my opinion, a bad name.

The prompt was "What do women want?" Annie  demonstrated the magic of applying bleeding tissue to watercolor paper.

Despite my revulsion for girlie journaling I find myself sitting for the 5th week in Annie D 's Creative Journaling class, surrounded by a room full mostly of lady journalists. Annie D, our teacher, presents a verbal prompt then the class goes silent for about two hours; diving into their art tools, montaging, collaging, transferring images, coloring and glueing. Annie strictly forbids any kind of critiquing in her class, including judgement of your own pages.  Her class offers a safe calm space for a lot of people to come together to create a personal something. 
  

The prompt was who are your heroes /heroines? Visiting Venezuela, I became fascinated with the local saints. My favorite is Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez 
who cared for the poor and after his early death in a car accident still performs miracles for the living.

You are allowed to ask questions in her class: How did you do that?, What kind of paint did you use? Where did you find that image?  One session  I asked the class, "Why do you journal and what do you get out of this class?"  There were a lot of responses, and I had to write fast, these answers were paraphrased:

It gives me perspective.helpful in a spiritual way, it is a kind of spiritual practice.

I wasn't "creative".  After a business career and suppressing my creative side, I find that I can be creative.

It is a nice place to come for three hours on Saturday.

It is nourishing... there are no judgements.
A stress reducing, meditative practice.

A way of processing events. and manifesting goals.
I enjoy color and making marks.

I am glad to have a place to spew. I like keeping it confidential and not spilling my angst into the world. I can contain it in a journal 

I used to just write, but the addition of using images brings forth a deepness. I find it soothing and helpful.

It is a sacred container for joy, and hopes, dreams, grief, rage.  It is a place for feelings: putting them down into the page and transforming a feeling into a page with color and image. Allowing a feeling to form. watching it change into the next form... witnessing the transformation

This kind of journal is open ended. Sometimes the pages remain unfinished, to be added to later. 

The pages that I see made in this class are most often awkward at best, but the energy and sincerity with which they are made are admirable.  At the end of class Annie D asks what people have discovered. Then she eloquently has the words to make the process important, despite however awful or awkward the art.

My discovery in this class?  My own inner critic is loud... insistent and impatient. I can't get her to shut up. Perhaps I should get Annie D to give her a talking to. 

June 2020

Annie D says, "The creative process doesn't need steering." 
I have discovered that a prompt can take your to
places you wouldn't go to on your own

A Scout Scrap Book: Foretells the Future

My Brownie Book from Troop 301 is a window into the past, and a porthole into the future.

Stored deep in my box of special journals I discover a hard object  I unknot the silk scarf in which it is wrapped and the memories spill out. Ah ha!, it's my brownie scout scrap book. Wooden covers, rawhide binding, macaroni letters. A familiar woody smell that prompts me to remember that dad cut the wooden cover boards for the entire Troop 301.

I glued those letters down, burying them in coats of shellac. Remember shellac? Won’t something eat them?, my eight year old self asked the leader.  Here are the macaroni letters, 60 years later and they are still hanging on. Well, most of them are.

What else resides between those covers? 

The book starts with the portraits of the girls of Troop 301.

A smiling brownie portrait.: eek pictures of my former self along with the girls of troop 301.  The portraits are amazing. Most of us are making the required nice smiley say "cheese" faces.  Judy G. is caught with her eyes shut, looking as if she is about to be shot.  Beth B. is making a ghoul face for no apparent reason. Sheila S. is sending mixed messages, her hands are nicely folded but she is sucking in her cheeks making her look slightly demonic.  Posing for a group portrait clearly isn't a popular pass time for this troop of eight year olds.



Scout cards. This brownie book was the start of a long scout career that led to being a senior scout. (how did i do this so long?) My secret desire was to be a sea scout.... I irrationally hoping that if I hung in there long enough some opportunity would arise. Fat chance living miles inland from the coast in the semi desert. 

Troop 301’s field trips are recorded. There is evidence of travels to The Sun Telegram, our local newspaper. I remember taking a tour and smelling the hot lead type and the sound of the big thundering presses. There was a trip to the 7 Up bottling plant (here everyone was rewarded with a soda.).  At the Griffith Park Planeterium I got a souvenir postcard. While I had no use for star talks then or now, I can say that I still love an expedition.

There are newspaper clips with photos. I remember how much I hated wearing the uniform as I got older and the fights with my mother who insisted I wear the full brownie uniform on troop meeting days. She loved uniforms. I did not. Even at ten I had my own ideas about fashion that didn’t include uniforms with dorky hats.

The color change from brown to green tells me the Brownie Scrap book stuck around all through my scouting career.

The merit badges are a revelation. Architecture (I went to architecture school),  Horsewoman (I was one horse crazy little girl and my best days growing up were those riding with my pals) . Backyard Camper (still camping), Journalism. (Then I had no clue I would become a writer.) Salt Water Life, one of my favorite things is still beach combing and I tell myself in my next life I will be a marine biologist.  Astonishing that 9 year old me knew where I was headed... and here are the badges to prove it.

My secret desire was to graduate into being a Sea Scout, the branch of senior scouts that focused on boating. Dream on. My town was located in the semi desert of southern California, hours away from the ocean. Still I took sailing in college, I found boyfriends with boats, I married an avid sailor and for many years we’ve sailed our Tartan 30 on San Francisco bay. Some of my best memories are of boat camping.  My secret desire found a way. 

This little scrap book is probably my first journal.  It is such a shock to see that the various threads of my life have had beginings long before I knew what path I would take.  The evidence is here in my Brownie Scout Scrap book.

Ship's Log: The Mariner's Journal

Logbook of the Betsy Williams (ship) of Stonington, Conn., mastered by Glibert Pendleton, kept by John R Collins, on a whaling voyage 1851-1854). Source: New Bedford Whaling Museum digitized collection.

Ship logs are serious. Succinct. Essential records of conditions and accountings of the ship's business. Old handwritten captain's logs despite their seriousness, are often quite beautiful. 

 Logbook of the Betsy Williams. Often the logs on whaling voyages detailed the catch. "Sperm whale... officer struck which was killed by the mate took her along side .... 

Logbook of the Nimrod (Ship) of New Bedford, Mass., mastered by Willis Howes, 
kept by Willis Howes, on voyage from 18 Sept. 1857-14 July 1861] (1857)

Generally kept in a captain's handwriting the entries note the passage of the ship’s course. The penmanship on these logs are often a voluptuous, extravagant script characteristic of a time when handwriting was an art. One wonders that the writers of these books could ever write a legible line given the pitch of a sailing ship could everNonetheless, these books are a pragmatic and practical tool for navigating a featureless, watery world that might be a dull, eventless series of days and then turn treacherously violent in a few minutes.  

Logbook of the Hibernia (Ship : 1830-1870) of New Bedford, Mass., 
mastered by Jeremiah Ludlow, on voyage from 3 May 1866-25 Nov. 1860] (1866).

The term “ship’s log” comes from the custom of recording “logs". Early sailing ships carried an actual wooden log that was tied to a length of rope, knotted at regular intervals.  A sailor dropped the log over the stern of the ship letting the rope play out as the ship sailed on.  A mate counted the number of the knots that played out for a fixed time interval. Distance traveled over the time (ship speed) was recorded in "knots".   Knots were the measure how far and fast the ship was moving.  

Logbook of the Nassau (Ship : 1824-1865) of New Bedford, Mass., mastered by J.W. White,

 kept by H.C. Murdock on voyage 5 Aug. 1850-22 May 1853] (1850).

The log readings were meticulously recorded in a journal which came to be called simply “the log.” To this day maritime speed is noted not in miles per hour, but in knots.

Log book tally of whale oil from the ship Fortune. An
interesting method of charting months and harvest.

The survival of the ship, its crew and cargo depended on the  care in keeping a meticulous log that tracked the voyage. Speed was recorded in knots. Position marked with  compass and sextant readings.  Wind and sea conditions, sail adjustments, sightings of other ships, port calls, deaths, and curious events and strange phenomena all made their way into the captain’s logs.

Investigate old ships logs and you will find records of journeys written by able, literate men engaged in a high priced, high risk endeavor with lives and cargo at stake. These logs are tough-minded, no nonsense, clean, and clear... admirable qualities in any journal. 

We can admire them for their consistency and their bare bones beauty. But the large questions that these books address; Where are we now? How far have we come?  Are we on course? What direction next? are exactly the same questions that many journals try and answer.

6.4.2020

“The Ship American Laying in Talcahuano.  Remarks Saturday April 30th All hands employed in cleaning and painting ship on the outside." She is harbored at the town of Tolcahuano and keeping company with the Alexander Barclay from Bremeu, the bark Draco and several merchant ships and brigs. Remarks on Sunday say “ All hands on liberty." She lays to off the island (in Chili?) makes another week of repairs giving the crew another liberty Sunday and then American sails.

Note: A wonderful collection of Digitized Captain's Logs has been made available by the New Bedford Whaling Museum of Massachusetts. Page through the logs @ New Bedford Whaling Museum Ship Log Archive

Photo Box Journal: Not in words, but in beautiful images ....

"I will show you who you are, not in words but in beautiful images that could not ever be counterfeited or forged. And you will know exactly who you are, forever by knowing what it is that you love."

Mark Helprin. 

Inside this box is a  is a gift... a keepsake... a photo collection... an art work.  It is also a kind of journal.  A backdoor way to make a journal is to have a friend make it for you.This method requires some luck, and luckily, my friend David is a photographer who also creates one off art pieces that he often gives as gifts. 

I first met David in a dark room.  This particular darkroom was a photographic dark room in the architecture school on the Berkeley campus.  He came into the lab to develop his photos. I worked at the desk helping keep the photo lab running.  We were both students. We struck up a conversation. I had no idea that this particular conversation would be decades long.  

David has always been a photographer and always traveled with a camera, long before cameras were attached to a phone.  I could  spot his tall blond figure across the campus by his big, bulky Nikon slung over his shoulder.   His Nikon would come along on walks, sailing, or on on a trip to the beach. We went places. David took pictures. Or in his words, "you don't take a picture, you make a picture."  At the time I didn't realize he was documenting my life, 

One birthday, decades after college, I was presented with a box that promised to show me who I was. That is precisely what this lovely gift did. I opened the box to find a collection of photos end to end that was long enough to span the room. It is a wonderful document of my life. No words. Only pictures. Many photos compiled accordion style in one very long unfolding of my life in beautiful images. 

It was a treasure.
It still is.
November 2017