I started saving my journals about 5 years ago.  Until then, after I completed each one I threw it away so no one would ever be able to read them.   Now I wish I hadn’t done that but at the time it seemed appropriate.  Five years ago I found myself living alone, and privacy seemed less important to me and I started to save them.   I began doodling, or collaging, or painting in my journals, but until this last year or two, they were mostly written journals.  I have been doing some cleaning and rearranging in my house, and the journals live on a shelf in my studio and I now need that shelf for other things, so I’m packing them away for a while.  I thought I would share the covers and maybe some of the less incindiary pages.  I don’t censor myself in these journals, so please excuse any words you may find that seem inappropriate – I’ve tried to crop out most of the writing.  In the  last five years all of my journals are titled, “Imaginary Conversations,” and numbered by year.  I read that phrase somewhere and it seemed like the perfect title for a journal – these are imaginary conversations because what is said in a journal is not usually spoken.  Anyway here are a few of them.  Some years there are more than one, or I keep two, one with just writing and one more visual.  These are the early visual ones, and there is still a lot of  journal writing on the pages.   

 Imaginary Conversations I – 2005 ~ Words Unspoken

I always use a green pen for writing in my journals and I often scribble little pictures with the green pen.  

This page folds out to reveal the scribble below.

I really like to scribble faces.

Imaginary Conversations II ~ 2006

I remember I had been trying different glues – I don’t remember what this was – but it was a failure!  The page is permanently wrinkled, I tried making it better by hand drawing a paisely design around it!

I remember this page – the post-it notes I penciled in are taken from the little notes a co-worker used to leave for me when I was working at the main office of a well-known non-profit food delivery service, located in Portland.  I was the “Office Manager” and this particular busy lady liked to let me know when the mail room needed clean up or organization.  She left “empty” on a paperclip holder that was obviously empty!  haha  The “return to patio” referred to an empty milk crate that someone had misplaced in the mailroom.  The next day when it hadn’t been dealt with per her instructions she threw it at me (not the note, the plastic milk crate!) 

The next page – haha – I think I was feeling a little witchy about the whole place!  I only lasted about four months – it was just too stressful a workplace.  The milk crate incident was only a minor wrinkle in the overall atmosphere of the place.

Well, that’s a few pages from Imaginary Conversations I and II.  I will be sharing more in the next few days – life is getting piled up in the present tense as the holidays begin with their freeway speed, not much time for artmaking!  I am busy working on Christmas presents now!