January - what a month!

Whew! January was a busy and productive month for me. I prepped for my Silhouette Stories class at Two Hands Paperie, taught the class last weekend, somehow managed to keep up with my MATS class and Year of painting class, and worked in my No More Excuses Calendar. February looks to be about the same, busy, busy, busy. For now I will give you a glimpse of what I worked on and will follow up with specifics on my journaling classes and other projects!

Mixed media painted creating in Alena Hennessey's Year of Painting class, incorporating my word for the year, flow. "I am rooted, but I flow." -Virginia Woolfe


Silhouette Stories journal page


Journal design created in Lila Rogers MATS Bootcamp class. Tons of sketches and ideas have come out of this first assignment and I look forward to sharing them in the future as prints, journals, stickers and cards. Keep an eye out for them!

Happy Birthday!

Today, on my birthday, I thought I'd share this very special piece that I recently created. I have been looking at a lot of work by Alphonse Mucha and this journal page is born out of a combination of that and a visualization exercise that I recently did for the Nu Icon program. It was quite a process of unearthing this vision of myself which is a bit atypical for me. After bringing this image to light, I adore the organic, feminine, and Victorian representation of myself and my creativity.

Field Notes

I'm taking Juliana Coles' Field Notes class right now and so far I am having a great time. I am working in two journals, one is a preexisting sketchbook and for the other I am working in a novel with cute nautical and map illustrations. Working right over the printed text is liberating, and I find that it keeps me from getting too precious with the page. Another great tool for that is fat pens and markers. It really helps! Maybe these sketches are a little rough around the edges, but I kinda like that. The whole concept for the class is to get out and about, sketch more, and to create a practice. A PRACTICE people! I still have to reign in my own expectations and remember that it is just a page. If I don't like it I can do another drawing, as many as I like! The beauty of sketching is that my drawings really need to simmer, when I come back I always like it better than when I was trying to strong-arm it into some vision in my head. Have journal, will travel.

This is my favorite! My studio, with all that I love and use. (in progress)

A view of my backyard

Revisionary

I have been creating new work using Juliana Coles' Revisionary Journal booklet as prompts for my artwork. The lessons are great for getting you looking at the past year and bringing that information forward, helping you dial in on what needs tweaking, pursuing and letting go of. If you enjoy these pages, please leave me a comment and if you want to make your own work, head over to Juliana's ETSY site to pick up some inspiring assignments!

Time to Heal

This top image is perhaps one of the most powerful and beautiful journal pages that I have made in quite some time, possibly all year. It is certainly the most important for me. This last year and a half of dealing with the combined effects of Adrenal Fatigue, Hypothyroid, painful and limiting Plantar Fasciitis, as well as a move and many other life questions and uncertainties has been a hard road.

I have found that these issues have featured in my work prominently over the last couple of years. When my journalling relates to my health and my body, it falls into one of two categories, pain or healing. There are the "I'm so frustrated, when is this gonna get better" pages, but lately a new kind of grace has entered my work. Gratitude, acceptance and healing. It can be a long road to recovery, but what has changed most for me is my appreciation of this time. No longer angry and frustrated I am starting to see the gifts that being unwell has given me. It far outweighs the pain and frustration. Murkiness and stuckness begin to clear and with limitations comes new intentions. I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season and that we can all be grateful for where we are, no matter what it looks like!

Unsinkable

I recently saw a sculpture by an incredible local potter of a woman floating over a seal. I took my breath away. The figure was hovering above, supported and protected in a way by the seal. It was called Unsinkable. I can't tell you how meaningful that was for me. It is an image that I haven't been able to get out of my head and I knew there would be a journal page in it. I like this page a lot. The figure isn't perfect, but there will be chances to work on this idea more. I love stories of selkies, and I identify with seals (and otters) for their playfulness. They remind me of who I want to be and how I want to live.

 I created both of these pages in Juliana Coles' Altered States workshop. This page was a bit of a surprise for me. I was trying to do the assignment, but this page really evolved on it's own. It really became about the loss of my first home a year ago. I know it sounds silly, I live in a really great home in Boulder. There is so much that I love about it, my studio, the space, the deer that wander through my backyard. As a girl who moved around a lot growing up I've never really felt rooted, or like any place was really my own. Even when I moved to LA it was temporary, for grad school. I knew I couldn't stay there long term. Moving to Colorado was for me, for us, and my little house in Old Town Longmont was so me. Everything I always wanted. But life moves forward, and as much as I resisted, so did I. I wasn't ready to let go and move on, but the timing was right and we did it. I still mourned the loss of that home like it was a person, a part of me. And it was.

After that, things came to a head. My foot, my health, I felt like my whole life was unraveling. Where I'd felt rooted before, I began to feel untethered and unattached to where I was. Now I understand that while these feelings were valid, they were also symptomatic of what my overtaxed body was dealing with. But I get that this is a healing house. The place where I am learning my limits and am forced to change. And one little change opens up a world of options. My life is here now, but there is no telling where it will end up. Will we make our way back to the sea, closer to friends and family one day? I hope so. But there is no way to see that when you are in a warm cocoon with your eyes closed. I feel a bit like the phoenix rising from the ashes of destruction. A dramatic comparison for sure, but how can we get where we're going without a catalyst?

Pirate Friday

A few years ago, I was blessed to embark on an experience that changed my life completely. I attended a School of the Sea, Piratical art retreat hosted and taught by now dear friends, Lou Ann Granger and Juliana Coles. At the southernmost point of Florida, I met my soul sisters Captain Morgan La Fey, First Mate Falcon La Grange, Fearless Iron Gem, Pinky La Rouge, and Juana La Loca. We lost Juana La Loca only a few months later, and Alvida Black Viper joined our crew and filled a void that was so deeply felt. These women are my Brethren, know me, and just get it. It was at this retreat that I recognized that I was an artist who had abandoned her art, and not long after that, I accepted my fate and left my day job to figure it all out. I am Quartermaster Jessie Starling, the namesake of this blog where I helm me ship and sail open waters.

I am a pirate, it's true. A pirate for love, life, and art. It is possible that my love of all things pirate and of the sea would wane after that trip in 2009, but as the friendships and artwork grow deeper, so does my pirate soul. The extension of this is of course, pirate art and a healthy obsession with all things skallywag. I stumbled upon a blog that celebrates Pirate Fridays with piratical blog posts. In true pirate form, I decided to commandeer the idea for me own!

Here are some new journal pages, the first is about the Devil Whale. Pirates are lured to it and embark upon it thinking it is an island. Once they realize their mistake, the Devil Whale takes them down. This got me thinking about being capsized, and the truth is, sometimes we have to sink in order to sail. Sometimes the pieces of our life that just don't work anymore have gotta go. It is hard to let go of those parts of ourselves, we feel stripped bare, but it is the only way to grow and move forward. As in life, one thing lead to another, and the Devil Whale lead me to the next page. I have realized that I have been the rock in so many of my relationships. The calm grounding force. It is who I am, but not all that I am. This last year and a half journey through pain, and change, and health questions has been a trip through stormy seas. I have only recently gleaned any clarity, and am learning so much about myself. I can see now that things had to fall apart, I had to be forced to let go. My whole life I have wanted to be freer, to surrender. I just didn't realize that sometimes something has to happen to get you there. Iv'e really had to learn how to say no, and to teach myself how to ask for help and to surrender to the helping. I have also seen that you can be reaching out, without the proper words, and people still miss it. So where words have often failed me and walls have served better, I am trying to let the guard down and speak the truth more. How can anyone know you, your brightness or your pain, if you are unwilling to share your truth.

Needless to say, this comes after what feels like a long muddled time of questions, confusion, and searching. Sometimes my pages have more wisdom than I do. Sometimes the answers are lost until you can read the clues. Sometimes it's about so much more than just liking pirates.

"The only way out is through."

Silhouette Stories

I am so excited to share my article from the 2012 issue of Pages magazine with you! I find myself drawn to silhouettes, and use them in my journal work often. I wrote this article to demonstrate how to bridge the gap between nostalgic and modern, and also give examples of different ways they feature in my work. I was thrilled to see the layout, and how many samples of my work that were used. You can order a copy here or pick one up at Barnes and Noble. Enjoy!

Healing: Part 3

After several months of foot pain and a relapse where I felt like I was at square one (physically and mentally), my body wizard comes to my aid again. Further testing revealed low thyroid and adrenals. Ta da! Basically I don't metabolize well enough to produce the energy needed for regular, day to day stuff. This combined with poor sleep and stress was partly why my foot just wasn't healing, and also why I wasn't feeling like myself for some time. It wasn't just the move, change, or pain, but a general slowing of my systems. Why calm, mellow Jessie felt raw, emotional, and UNGROUNDED. Why I felt intense where I was always playful, albeit quiet and introspective. Why I felt like I wasn't dealing with my life with any kind of grace. That's tough to admit, and something I pretty well kept to myself, while nursing my injuries alone "protected" by my candy coated shell.

So that's it. It's been all about the body and now I'm allowing myself to set limits, take it slow and really figure out how to heal. I am not looking for solutions here people. I need support, but not "you're doing it wrong" advice. I find that when I do share, people get freaky about it. Which is hard for a girl who has always been guarded and quiet, to let it out and get that kind of feedback. It doesn't help. I'm putting it out there to release it, so that it's not my secret burden anymore, and also to give context to my journal art. Now I can see what it was really about.

Healing: Part 2

Next came the move back to Boulder. A dream come true, right? More space, a beautiful home near the foothills... and all the grief and loss over letting go of my first home. HARD. I had no idea. For a girl who moved a lot growing up, with no input, no choice, my first home was a really big deal. My choice. My desires. The change, transition, growing pains, whatever you want to call it was rough. A wise friend told me that "every big change feels like a big mistake". Thank god for smart people. To let you know that you aren't crazy, just human. Not to mention I found myself with a pretty serious case of plantar faciitis brought on by all the packing.

I am not teling you this to whine, have a pity party, or to seek sympathy. Typically, I am not a good sharer. I'm not great with trust and vulnerability. I could tell you that I like to be mysterious, an enigma, but mostly I've just needed to stay inside my protective walls. Like I told you before, I now understand the work I've been doing and all these personal details give context to this work. So then comes the stage of a big new move, but hardly being able to to walk, and the pain keeping me stuck at home instead of enjoying this new community. Not yet seeing that other physical and emotional factors were what was really keeping me stuck. To be cont...

Healing: Part 1

These are pages from one of my journals. This is a healing book. It is my ongoing journal from 2011, and I have had a love hate relationship with it. I now know why. It is full of pain, loss, and confusion. That is why it made me cringe to look at it, yet I was pulled to work in it nonetheless. It's been an emotionally full year and a half. I came back from another amazing visit to Greece in September 2010, and was saddled with intense neck pain on the flight home, which lasted on and off for several months. Enter phase one of pain and the emotional toll that physical pain takes on you over time. I met an amazing acupuncturist/naturopath/body wizard that within minutes of meeting me discovered that my gallbladder was the culprit. I'm not kidding. I went back and forth, up and down, in and out of pain with that one. But the pain is gone and my gallbladder seems happy. To be cont...

Keepin on...

The journaling continues. I have a mixed relationship with this book, very love hate. I took a vintage book that I loved with sections on ancient civilizations (Romans, Greeks...), filled with fantastic illustrations and turned it into a journal. I painstakingly made the cuts, removing pages out of necessity. The process of working the pages and letting go of the imagery has been a difficult one. The work I have done in this book confounds me as well. I created it to be an anything goes kinda book, without feeling pressured to use my own photography, drawing or painting. Yet I struggle with the things I put into this book, and I see the struggle. When I take a break from working in it and come back, I can literally see the struggles, changes, and growing pains I am experiencing. It is an uncomfortable kind of feeling. Some days, I want to put this book away and start with a new journal, filled with blank white watercolor pages. Then the other part of me wants to see this thing through, and work in it from start to end of 2011, and see where it leads me...

A series of pages

These are two recent journal spreads that I wanted to share with you. They are personal and even painful pages for me. The top spread was created after dealing with months of neck pain due to some seemingly unrelated health issues. After feeling better for a little while, I relapsed and the pain began to get worse. After months of feeling physically limited and emotionally worn out from it all, this page was created. It holds my pain and grief, and is a necessary part of my journal work. All of this was present during my Artfest preparations. The next page was created shortly after the first, when the cloud of pain finally started to lift. New supplements got me back on track, I was as ready as I could be to vend at Artfest, and eager to spend time with my artist friends there. Thank you to Chad, my Mom, my Brethren and all those who supported me during a very physically and spiritually taxing time. I'm still working on the root issue and doing my best to become healthier and strong.

Call em out!

Hello all! I have been missing from my blog lately, but busy in the studio. I have been doing a lot of sketching, painting, and working in my journals. Next on the list is a slew of handmade and repurposed books. I am getting ready to attend and be a vendor at Artfest, so it's busy, busy, busy over here! This is a journal page I did recently about calling out all those who have done me wrong. It's in my Pirate journal, so it is appropriate for me to call em out and fight em till the end. I ended up loving this piece even though it started out so far from here. It was a lot of fun, and really ends up being less about the injustices of my world than the way I deal with it. What I will allow and what I deem unacceptable. It's easy to go for pretty over truth, style over substance, but we all have to decide what and who we want to be. How do we choose to present ourselves to this world? As a shell, fragile and superficial, or something deeper, full of grit and truth. It may not be easy, and we may not always sit fully with ourselves, but it's worth striving for. Dig deeper.

Black Swan

When I saw the movie Black Swan I knew virtually next to nothing about it and went in with a completely open mind. After I saw it I was blown away, and the idea of duality really stuck with me. The film was one thing, but as my Back Swan Brethren sisters know, there is a deeper meaning in the black swan, or black swan moment. The first pages are more of an ode to the film. I loved the illustrated movie posters and printed one for my journal, but I wanted to incorporate it somehow. So I added other images as well as text from the film, and by the end it felt a little like how I imagined the inside of Nina's mind. The second spread holds it's place in my pirate journal. This one loosely represents the contradictions and dualities within all of us. It was fun working on opposites in it's simplest forms.

It's been a busy summer

What a summer! So much fun it's hard to know where to begin. All along the way I intended to post more, show pictures, tell of my various exploits. But here it is, wrapped up in a big package at the end of it all. I guess the biggest accomplishment was laying this flagstone path. It was a lot of work for Chad and less for me, but the result is beautiful. Earthy and modern, it suits us and our house to a tee. Now to get flower beds in place and paint the front door. Dusty teal, so nice.

Other highlights were good family get togethers, the Greek festival, and the outdoor movies in Boulder. I have to tell you, watching Top Gun outdoors on the big screen, with a nostalgic and enthusiastic crowd...it doesn't get much better than that.

This was my first year at the Folks Festival and I will be going back. I love Lyons to begin with, but the experience was such a surprise. Good food, great music, all along the side of the river. When you get hot, you just jump in. Or tube down it. The stage was open, with trees dancing behind the bands. At night when The Swell Season played, the trees were lit with orange lights, and they glowed on fire. So good to hear great live music, outdoors. So good to live in Colorado. We were there, listening, sketching, taking it all in. I was playing around with the above page while listening to Gregory Alan Isakov, and it was bliss. Afterwards, when everyone was having CD's and albums signed, I went up to say "hi" and took my journal. My artwork has always done the talking for me, so armed with it I felt brave and not so shy. And the band signed it. And we actually had something to talk about, which was really fun. Later that night I let myself go and basked in the beauty of Glen and Marketa. Like I said, it was a busy summer, and a damn good one too.

Published!

I am so excited to tell you that I have been published in the summer issue of Art Journaling Magazine! I am so greatful to see my work in print. It brings me back to my Graphic Design days when the stars aligned and a print job came to full fruition. I am happy for the change in career direction, but still love the result of a printed page. Magazines and books about books, it doesn't get much better than that. So please check it out. You can pick up a copy at Borders or Barnes & Noble, or take a look here. Thanks Stampington!

Bits of Egypt

I love a little before and after. Much excavating went on to create this piece. I was pushed beyond my comfort zone to continue adding paint over images, layering, removing, and sanding to get to this point. Despite my concerned frustration, I love where it ended up. Not sure what it's all about, although I know some writing wants to make its way onto the page to connect these ancient symbols to my present state of mind.

New Journal Pages

These are some recent journal pages that I've been working on. Various states of progress and meaning. A bit of my past, a dream for my future, and some of the questions in between. Let me know what you think.

Safe House

Here is a page from my new journal. It started as a big mess of a warmup, which despite my best efforts at overloading and mucking up, I actually started to like a little bit. Which is why when I decided to work back into the page, so much of the original is there. I liked the rawness and energy, and did not want to stifle it by covering over it too much. Not right now any way. The prompt was to create a "safe house" to house what could never be taken if all was lost.

Funny to me that I just had to put an air stream picture down. I had a few to choose from, but just knew one needed to go on the page. Ironic to me that my "safe house" involves being taken on the road, wherever, and whenever. If you know me this is not so ironic. I have a tremendous love for places, and am always dreaming of where is next. Even when I am happy and settled. It's just who I am. Like kicking a bad habit, after a childhood of many moves, my wanderlust continues on. And the people on the page have traversed many states alongside me, so I guess it's no wonder that this girl doesn't need deep roots to feel secure.