Saturday, August 22, 2009

WTJ Update

I've been making progress in my journal, but I'm still sticking with doing the "safer" pages. I've sewn a page, made thick and thin lines, rubbed a page with dirt, tore out a page and put it through the wash cycle and glued it back in, dribbled paint on a page, glued in random items that I found on the street, glued, scribbled, pressed leaves, and dropped the journal from my second story balcony. All of that was fun, but I realized that I wasn't pushing myself to actually do something destructive. I decided that I needed to muster up the courage to take the journal into the shower. I began very cautiously by hanging it from the soap dish using string. As I showered, I noticed that the journal was getting sprayed only lightly. I really wanted to get it wetter, but on the other hand, I didn't want it to get saturated because of potential mold issues. I repositioned the journal so more spray would hit it. By this time I was really getting into the process and would purposely aim the shower head to spray on the journal. The end result was that the front and back covers, and pages closest to the covers, were fairly wet. The inner pages were more protected, so only the edges of those pages were wet. The journal is now drying, and I'm happy to say that it has taken on a somewhat warped look. All in all, I was surprised that I was able to let go and not be so protective of my work; in fact, taking it in the shower was liberating and fun.