2009 May : Jill Berry Blog

My girl (in blue) and her friend Sadie (yellow) graduated today from the fifth grade. The gym was filled with graduates and their parents, most of whom I have known since kindergarten. We are a small town. It was so moving, so profound, to think this journey at this school with all of these kids [...]

My Memorial

Posted on May 26, 2009 - Filed Under My Work | 10 Comments

Yesterday was Memorial Day, and I have someone to remember. His name is Roger Cobb Hallberg, and his name was on the POW bracelet I wore as a teenager. While I was dating and going to Disneyland, he was fighting, and then disappearing, in the jungle maze of Vietnam. A brave young newlywed just vanished.
For [...]

Painting the Cosmos

Posted on May 22, 2009 - Filed Under 2009 Workshops, Creative Exercises | 1 Comment

Life here has been hectic. Pipes bursting, loan officers disappearing with our mortgage papers, dental work gone way wrong, it goes on and on. Sometimes I think that elements in our lives get accidentally connected and make agreements, “Let’s all Leap!” Random Chaos, swirling around us. I decided to paint it.
I started with Sumi ink [...]

Secret Gardens in Boxes

Posted on May 19, 2009 - Filed Under What I am up to | Leave a Comment

The first day of Paul Johnson workshops we did Secret Gardens in Boxes. We made these self contained pop up books that are only one piece of paper, cut, folded and decorated. We then made another that fits in a box, and we wrote haiku to go on the pages.

There were twenty people in one [...]

Paul Johnson, day 1

Posted on May 14, 2009 - Filed Under Artist Friends | 7 Comments

Paul Johnson, a book artist from Manchester, England, is staying with us this week. He is conducting four workshops for our guild that took me three years to get organized. It was almost like a wedding in the level of ordeal and then whoosh, the time is here and rapidly rushing by. Yesterday we went [...]

Mama’s Day

Posted on May 11, 2009 - Filed Under About me | 1 Comment

Yesterday I had a gourmet breakfast: egg strudel, grilled grapefruit with toasted coconut, fresh coffee and flowers. My girl made me a book of poetry, the dedication page is here. Steve made a beautiful slide show of our parenting history. Those sweet fat baby legs, I miss those! Beach days, hiking days when our dogs [...]

Art and Soul VA

Posted on May 6, 2009 - Filed Under 2009 Workshops | 4 Comments

Last week was a whirlwind tour of buses, trains and planes, paints, paper and sumi. Whew! I taught for the first time at Art and Soul in Hampton, Virginia. Mary Ann picked me up at the airport and hit a drive-in she saw on the Food Network, then off to A&S.
The first class was Sumptuous [...]

Artfest In-Site Journal

Posted on May 5, 2009 - Filed Under Creative Exercises | 12 Comments

My Artfest Journal is finally finished. This journal technique involves working on flat pages during a specfic event or trip, and assembling them later. It is the one of the most satisfying things I do. For one, it records everything I did there including notes for the classes I took, and it makes me attend [...]