Map of a Woman's Day

What is a map?

Is it such a simple question.

I am in the process of collecting

diverse and wild responses.

Do you have an answer? I am not going to give you examples, purposely. I just want you to find your own answer, fresh and unique, and post it here.

I will pick a random number for a

goody box giveaway on Wednesday, September 7

one week from today and the day after I get back from teaching at Valley Ridge. So, leave your answer and cross your fingers!

And for the record, I might be putting some of this in my upcoming book……….

©2010 Jill Berry Blog. All Rights Reserved.

What are the characteristics of creative people?

Today I finished up the journal page.

I had a good time doing the poll, watching the faces of the thinkers, and hearing all the ideas. This a combo of journalism, the DNA for which I gleaned from my grandmother who was a newpaper woman, and journaling, which I love. It also gets the pollster moving around the crowd. Try it!

This morning I dropped my kids off and took myself out to breakfast. It was such a treat, so luxurious to be looked after. My notes from the poll were in pencil, so I drew them in pen then erased the scribbles. I had a table full of markers and the other diners kept walking close to my table to spy. No one said a word.

What do you think? If you have an answer that my class did not come up with, post it here. Here is some fodder for those of you with kids who can’t think straight.

The human mind once stretched by a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

©2010 Jill Berry Blog. All Rights Reserved.

I spent yesterday spinning a tale, channeling the voice of my grandmother, Mildred Masterson McNeilly.  She was called Kelly. She was complex, delightful to me, and challenging. In 1954 she and my grandpa went to Paris with my mother, who was 19 at the time and engaged (Holy cow, that is another story altogether). This is a project for my book with North Light, due out November 2011. My book is about maps, and finding our place in the world.

Personal Geographies:
Mapping Your Stories in Mixed Media

My Nana is gone now, so I decided to write her story for her, as she might have done on her Royal typewriter. It will go with a set of postcards and maps from Paris at the time that I made into a book, which you will see later on down the road.

My mom gave me a list of things that they did there, and I just let loose. It was fun, and I recommend it. Here is a sample of what I wrote.

Monday, July 5
The third day I set to shopping, as any sensible woman would in Paris. It was a gloriously sunny and successful day, at the end of which dear Glenn was laden with bags and I was actually beginning to feel civilized. Lunch along the Seine, Coq au vin and of course, more vin than coq, merci beaucoup. A song popped into my head and stayed there, darned that Dinah Shore.

“Gimme eastern trimmin’ where women are women,
In high silk hose and peek-a-boo clothes,
And French perfume that rocks the room,
And I’m all yours in buttons and bows.”

Saw an actual bottle of “Joy”, at a mere 45o an ounce, the most expensive perfume in the world. Who wears this? I am guessing whoever it is would actually rock the room, avez-vous d’accord?

Today I am back to my own voice, and working hard on my book. I have so many things to catch up on, including writing about my fabulous time at both Art Unraveled and Red Deer College in Canada. Almost ready to do that, and will this week. In the meantime, channel some loved one, and one of their stories. It might surprise you, and it certainly will entertain you!

©2010 Jill Berry Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Across the nightmare
You guided my boy and yours
Gently back to dreams

Last night my mom called, past midnight. That is never good. Sam is with her in California, he has been attending golf camp near her house, and has perfected the chip. He is treating everyone around him with gentile grace. Then last night, he woke up sobbing over a nightmare, and could not be settled. Mom called me, and between us, my voice, her hands, we got the little man back into dreamland.

I am tired this morning, and grateful for my mom. Grandma Jo. sweet Grandma, sweet Mom.

It is Haiku Friday, and Rebecca, I am thinking of you.

©2010 Jill Berry Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Last week I had a very last minute change of plans, which has historically been not a situation that brings out the best in me, control issues and all. This time I decided to take care of myself, lose the stress and turn the day into something even better than it would have been. And guess what? It worked.

That day I ended up at the beach with my new gal pal, Melanie Testa. You all probably know her, but if you don’t, head on over to her blog. She is a writer, a quilter, and a journaler, so we were a great combo on the beach, sitting in the bottom of a life guard stand drawing in our journals. We have a similar take on lots of things, and never ran out of things to chat about. After hanging out there in our play house, we took a long sunny walk along the James River pier, and talked to the folks that were fishing there. One kind crab guy gave us the entire run down on the life cycle of blue crabs, something I knew nothing about. I learned a lot, I laughed a lot and it was the perfect slow arty interesting day. It was like miso soup: will cure anything that ails you. So there it is. When plans blow up in your face, head to the beach with Melly and draw. I recommend it.

Any of you who have taken my journaling classes will see the techniques here: attending to the day, the surroundings, making it simple. I did all of the drawing at the beach, and penciled in the words. Later, out of the sun, I finished the text and added contour lines, and a the diagram of the pier. This is how I journal most of the time. The advantages are: no preparation of pages, super simple supply list (two pens and a pencil, plus my journal), finishing with three colors of Pitt markers. Voila! Can’t be much easier than that, and I needed easy.

It was a day of good medicine, and one of the very few days of no plans I have had in ages. Even took a nap. Made a friend too, which was the bonus round. Get to it!

©2010 Jill Berry Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Came back all ready to roll, and willing not to force the river. Sometimes it is a walk on the beach that my muse needs. Now she is happy.

©2010 Jill Berry Blog. All Rights Reserved.

There once was a dog named Teebo

Who when swimming would wear a Speedo

“It makes him look funky”

Said a passing by monkey

Teebo’s tears fell right on to his feeto.

By Sydney Erin Berry, poet, child, dreamer.

©2010 Jill Berry Blog. All Rights Reserved.

This year I am teaching two classes in working on black. One is coming up in a few weeks, and that is what I am working on right now. Three Letter Words is a class I am teaching at Artfest this month in Port Townsend, Washington. In this case, we paint our canvas black, and work with the negative spaces. Ironically the positive space in this case is black. Below you will see some exercises that show you how this works. This is a page of a small booklet I am making for the class.

We will use some of these same techniques on paper in Magical Midnight Stories, a class in May at Art & Soul in Virginia. You get a lot of bang for your buck, a lot of flash for your cash, excellence for your effort, and astonishment at your achievement with these simple techniques. Seriously.

I am making instruction booklets for each class. These are the books for Spontaneous Deconstructed Journals, another class at Artfest.

After Artfest I am going to sleep for a week, a mini-hibernation. I wish. What I am actually going to do is dive headfirst into my first book, Personal Geographies: Mapping Your Stories in Mixed Media. Just got the contract back from North Light Books and I am crazy happy about it. Look for it in 11/2011.

©2010 Jill Berry Blog. All Rights Reserved.

This one was inspired by the work of Joan Miró. I did this in a workshop that I was not enjoying very much, and I had to get inventive to keep myself happy there. I made a book I called “Faded Lust” about falling out of love. In this case, I was trying to divorce the two artists inside me that fight.

Of course there is a story behind this. Years ago I attended graduate school in Florence, Italy. My art teachers’ name was Guiseppe Gattuso, and we worked in his studio. At the beginning of the year he said to me “Lei è due artisti lottando” (or something like that) which translates to “You are two artist fighting”. I had the graphic designer (Chwast) and the painter (Monet) who could not reconcile their style. At the end of the year Senior Gattuso said to me, “Ora lei è tre” or, in English, “Now you are three”. Three artists inside me who just can’t bond.

So, when two of the three showed up at this workshop, I decided to divorce them (their friends never supported their union to begin with), and I made this book. It sold in Chicago the first night of a show, and I was so not expecting that to happen. I had not photographed it, but for this one page.

Have to say it worked, in a funny way. Ah, the magic of art making!

We will be some inventing in the Journal texting class I am teaching at both Artunraveled and Art & Soul Portland. Portland only has one spot left!!!

©2010 Jill Berry Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Some of this you can learn at Magical Midnight Stories at Art and Soul in Virginia in May. Some of it would be included in Journal Texting at Art and Soul in Portland in October. Or, you can just get out the Butterfly Pen (made by Jim Chin), Sumi Ink and watercolors and sit on the floor for some wild fun.

Here is the poem.

Poppies

Mary Oliver

The poppies send up their
orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation

of bright dust, of thin
and lacy leaves.
There isn’t a place
in this world that doesn’t

sooner or later drown
in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while,
the roughage

shines like a miracle
as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course nothing stops the cold,

black, curved blade
from hooking forward—
of course
loss is the great lesson.

But I also say this: that light
is an invitation
to happiness,
and that happiness,

when it’s done right,
is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields,

touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed
in the river
of earthly delight—

and what are you going to do—
what can you do
about it—
deep, blue night?

©2010 Jill Berry Blog. All Rights Reserved.