Fait Accompli

Pretty well everything I do as a mom is temporary in nature. The batch of cookies disappears faster than the time it took to bake them. Yesterday's glistening kitchen floor is now splattered with grape juice, and scattered with crumbs (and by crumbs I mean entire chunks of bread crust, gnawed on ends of sausage, spinach leaves and Cheerios!). Clothes are dirtied and back in the hamper, often before I even get them folded and in the drawer. I am a hampster on a wheel. There is no end point that my expended effort propels me towards. Round and round, done and undone, and needs to be done again.

So when I do actually have tangible proof of a job finished clutched in my hot, little hands, it is a heady moment. Look, look! An accomplishment!



My quotation journal, that I have been puttering away at since March, is complete. Look at all those pages, all mine, my preciousssss. Pages that no one is going to use up, mess up or otherwise undo.



What a great feeling it is to polish off an art journal! Put a gold star on it, it is done! This one was about exploring my favourite quotations (a lot of Walt Whitman, no surprise there!). My vision for it was of a cohesive book in which one page flowed beautifully into the next...but what was actually born is a raggedy book,




Of many colours,



Scribbles,


And advice to myself.


Most pages are very simple.



Sometimes I practised new techniques,

(Julification!)

(glazes and transparency)

Or just used up the paint on my palette, with surprising results.

Nothing was planned, everything spontaneous.


Occasionally something emerged that I was really proud of,

Or that sparked my imagination for other artworks,


But mostly it was just play, and appreciation of words that feed my soul.


Despite the fact that it is not the book I planned, and very, very imperfect...or maybe because of the fact that it is not the book I planned, and very, very imperfect, when I hold it in my hands, it fills me with:



Next blank journal is on my art table and ready to roll...
(and still working away happily on my BIG art journal too)