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Sunday, September 11, 2011

The State of the Studio


Sweet summer lingers on in Oregon. It's been an unusually busy time, with harvesting, canning and time in the studio keeping us occupied. Tomorrow I teach journal making to the high school kids near where I live. I'm taking stacks of my filled journals and I hope to instill in several of them a life long habit of writing, creating and loving the book form.


This is the back cover, spine and front cover of the journal I'll be putting together in class. The photo is a picture of my mother when she was 16 years old. Yesterday would have been her 87th Birthday and I just love this picture of her. It's printed on tracing paper, glued over an underpainting and then coated with 2 layers of tar gel. 


This is how I treated the insides of the journal covers. Wallpaper scraps glued randomly.


Recent pages. Lots of deep thinking. 


I had a dream a few nights ago that I was telling a class that now that my mother is gone that my journal is my mother; where I go with my good news and bad. And the people in the class looked at me like I was stating the obvious and said, "everybody knows that".


This afternoon I'm determined to get back to the cold wax paintings. I have a bunch of panels stacked up at the in-between stage.


Stephanie and I put in the mostly-final edits on the Plaster eBook this weekend so in days now I expect it will go through the final edit and on to the master disk guy. We check his work and then we get the disks made for all of you who have ordered them. It has taken awhile for this to come together but in seeing the final product I think you will appreciate all that's gone into it. Thank you all for your patience; you've been wonderful.


More studio stuff. Gotta get some of this packed away so I have room to make more stuff.


John made a very spicy soup out of these ingredients that had a creamy base of soy cream. It was just incredibly good and involved a trip to the neighboring farm stands for the corn because ours is not quite ripe yet. John is on a gluten free vegan diet now; good thing he's an awesome, creative cook.

Here is the recipe, it's in Spanish but I think you can figure it out. John made substitutions; olive oil for butter and soy cream for mayonnaise. He left out the meat too, obviously. Oh, and the chicken feet too - lol. That might disturb some people.



That's all the news I can think of today. Just breathing in summer, eating strawberries, giving thanks for life. I've said it before but I'll say it again, "Life: even when it's bad it's good". xo

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

I LOVE the quote "Life begins when your comfort zone ends!!!" You soo inspire!!!

Janine said...

Another wonderful post!

Any chance of getting that recipe for that soup?

Judy Wise said...

Janine, I added the video to the post for you. John got the recipe off this video.

Laurie (Elle Jaye) Jacobsen said...

I LOVED watching that video! Isn't it interesting to see the way people in other cultures prepare their food? Thank you for sharing it!

jill nalette said...

i love the page that says life begins where your comfort zone ends. i wish i could sneak into art class with the high school kids. they are so lucky!
be well!
xo + smiles~ jill

Lynn Cohen said...

All I can say is what lucky kids to have you for inspiration and teaching.

I so see you in that early photo of your mom. She must have been as dear.

Clare Wassermann said...

You have inspired me today in at least twenty ways!! xx

Sue said...

Judy, what a lovely thoughtful and entertaining post. I love the journal pages you made, and then this soup looks so delicious and HOTTT! Your comments are very nice and inspiring, too.

dorylyn said...

I wish I was a student in the journaling class. The picture of your mom is wonderful!

Healing Woman said...

I actually came to your post twice this morning. I just had to watch that video. Loved hearing the family in the background with all the familiar sounds a lively, fun family makes. The soup looks yummy, a bit hot for my taste but I can tone it down. The eggs added were a surprise to me.

It's wonderful that you are teaching journal keeping to the school kids. Hopefully you will instill in them the desire to keep a record of their lives and a love for books.

GailNHB said...

Judy, I too have been greatly inspired by your artwork and your photographs.

I have a question about your journals: is there a place on your blog or website where you talk about how you make them? I make mine from a single 22x40 inch sheet of watercolor paper and end up with a single signature journal - which I LOVE. But I'm wondering how you bind yours together so that it is a larger format book that looks more like a book with a "real binding."

katie said...

all this beauty and yumminess, food and art, i'm tingling with inspiration!

Parabolic Muse said...

Wow. What great pages. It's cool when you bring us into your mindset.

My journal is my second cousin on my father's side.

Oh, sure. I suppose everyone know that, too!

Janine said...

Thanks for posting Judy! Chicken feet don't shock me, although I wouldn't use them I do love menudo so you can see I am not shocked! LOL! Thanks again!

Buffalo Nickel said...

Would love to learn how to make these journals for high school students. I would like to teach a similar workshop. Could you do a video of the process and materials you take to class?