Art Journaling-Thoughts about my father. Love and Forgiveness........

I have been going through ancestor pictures to make more ATCs

For next year's gifts for my family. I started gathering pictures of 

my father, who passed away in 1999. I was astounded at the pictures that I came across. 

I did not even know that I had them. They were pictures that I

had never even looked at before.  With all the abuse I went through

as a child, these pictures did something to my heart.  I wanted to 

completely forgive him. The pictures of him as a

 child began to affect the way I viewed him.

 I was realizing  that he too was once a child and he

was abused and neglected by his mother. His father abandoned him.

I started praying to God to help me truly forgive him. 

The picture of my dad playing in the sand was the picture

that effected me the most. My father was so incredibly handsome.

My father had a high IQ, was highly creative and talented.

My mother fell head over heals for him. But she had no idea that he

drank. He was a very mixed up guy and he fell short to handle difficult

 situations on many occasions.... But there was this good, funny

part of my father that I loved. It was plain to see that he

was a walking civil war inside of himself.

 I went through days of strange emotions. I battled these Love/Hate

emotions toward him, his mother and his father.

 Finally, I asked God to please  help me forget the bad

and remember the things that were good in him.

On a Monday night, I went to my art room and found a 

folded letter in the middle of my art table.. I opened it and

realized  it was an old letter from my father. I had NO IDEA

how it got there!   The letter had no date, but with my brother's help, 

 we figured that  it was probably at least 25 years old. 

Strangely, I could not ever remember reading it before.

In the letter, he was asking me to forgive him.

It instantly brought tears to my eyes. I cried for some time.

Then, I asked everyone in the house if they had put it there. 

No one knew how it got there! 

 Now I do not believe that ghosts can move things.

I am sure that it got there by some means that I can not 

explain but the "how" it got there was not as important to me

as to "why" and "when" it got there.

 My father was an artist and my art table

would have been the most appropriate place to find this from him.

I put the letter in a special envelope with a ribbon attached so

that it would not be lost.

Why couldn't I remember 

reading this letter that I had probably kept for 25 years or more?

In the letter, my father also told me how much he loved me. 

These were words I needed from him.

I do believe that God had a hand in the letter ending up there on 

my art table. I feel now that I can truly forgive him and love

him for the good things about him. 

SO MANY THINGS HAPPEN FOR A REASON

in this case-FORGIVENSS!

Some art Journaling..............

My family moved a lot.  I thought we were gypsies or something.

After I got married, I decided to settle into a home and never move 

again. I hated the feeling of moving all the time. 

So I found the list of all the places that I lived from the time

I was born to present. I layered these pages with paints, paper

gesso, paint pens, pens more paint and then added the 

addresses for the sidewalk. The colors turned out very

nicely. 

FLOWER ATCs......from found junk............

I was going through a box of junk. It was a plastic tub that I threw

random stuff in. You know, stuff I did not want to think about right then. 

I threw about half of the stuff away today but found these four 

lovely flower heads. So I just could not make myself throw them

out because of the pretty colors so I hurried and put them on some

of my ready-to-use hand painted papers that I had preciously cut to 3.5 x 2.5

I used brads for the middles.  I like how they turned out for 

throwing them together so fast. 

Three ATC art dolls..............

I used some of my own ATC collage sheets to make these little ATC art dolls.

The top middle is one is put on a Joker card. The head is my friend that is a

professional clown. I put blue glitter to make her shiny. That is her happy smile.

The bottom left is Lenore the Mermaid in miniature and I made her tail move

with a matching green brad. The bottom right it Valentina and I made her have

translucent wings and made her little arms and legs movable with brads.

Three new Steampunk ATCs with Polymer clay............

I was playing with some polymer clay today and thought I would see

if I could make some Steampunk ATCs with my Steampunk Stamp. 

First I rolled the clay very thin with a  rolling pin,  I stamped it

with my large rubber Steampunk stamp and baked it. When it cooled, 

I painted it heavily with black water color paints and wiped extra off. 

The black stayed  in the grooves. Using metallic paint, I dry brushed 

the top surface. I added some metal embellishments and touched up

the edges. The pieces were glued to hand painted paper that was glued

to chipboard.  I think they turned out fairly well. It was a fun experiment.

Primitives OOAKs and Found Object OOAK Dolls..........

I made these primitives several years ago but wanted to post

them. This one is cloth with a paper clay covered head that is

sculpted, then painted and antiqued. 

She is about 18 inches long. Her hands and 

feet are also painted.  I want to call her Rebecca.

My Patriotic Prim is cloth with paper clay covered head

that is also hand sculpted. Her hair are patriotic stars

that match her quilted dress.

I just want to call her Betsy.

She is about 18 inches long

This Pioneer Prim is made the same way

with hand sculpted clay head that is painted

and antiqued. I want to call her Rachelle.

I have made many many pioneer bonnets for 

little girls and dolls alike. She is about 15 inches long.

My found object wooden "Quilt" doll.

She is adorned with vintage sewing supplies

and a miniature tape measure. Her arms are

long antique wooden spools. Her feet are old

spools of thread. Her wings are pieces of a 

very old crazy quilt that belonged to my good 

friend's grandmother. She cut it into pieces for

special shadow boxes for her own children and 

gave me two small extra pieces. They are very 

precious and I felt privileged to use them on my 

doll here. I thank her for that.

I used old china hands at the end of the 

antique spool arms. She is also adorned 

with an old sewing gauge, a small round

antique spool of thread and vintage needles.

I used an old china head and placed it in an old wooden

knitting circle. I liked the effect very much.

Silly Stuff in my art room......................

I made this many years ago when I was challenged to make a James Christensen doll. My honey loves it but I think it is mediocre.  But it hangs in my art room on a metal plate holder. 

I was in the weirdest mood one day, thinking of my father who has passed away. It is called "Jerry Rig Jack". My father was an artist and he was also a welder. He was also an "altered-things artist is a strange sort of way. When I was making this, I thought for sure I could  hear him laugh!

 Maybe his ghost was watching me. :)

I love this picture. It was made by my third son way back when he was very young.

It is hanging on the side of a self in my art room. It makes me laugh.

These are "tissue people" made by my step daughter. 

They were so cleverly done that I framed them. It hands on the wall above my art table. 

This is young ME.

 It is a mixed media page that I liked so well that I framed it too.

 I wrote things about myself. 

You can see the word "ART" is very big. 

My family really likes this one. 

It was fun to make and it is fun still to look at.

I put together this collage of old book fronts and dolls shoes.

These are two things I collect but do not always know what to do with them.

 Some of the dolls shoes have fallen to the bottom of the frame.

 I should fix that.

A collection of weird things I have made. 

This is a high shelf in a corner of my art room.

It is difficult to see the little framed clown hanging on the left side.

I should get a closer picture to show you how cute it is.