Back + Forth

Earlier this year, my beautiful friend Betsy and I decided to start a journal collaboration. She completed the first spread in the journal (her blog about which can be seen here) and mailed it to me. My spread took it's formation clues from hers, and her next one will take it's cues from mine, and so on. We have very different styles, so the cohesion of the look of this project is going to be so interesting.

Jumping into this spread was so much more difficult than I had expected! I battled lots of fears to get this color on the page: fear of Betsy not liking it, of nobody 'getting' it, of it being too scattered, too 'much', too odd. I like to be assured of the outcome of the things that I attempt. I have often been accused of taking a "Ready ... Aim ... Aim ... Aim ..." stance in my life. I don't often take explosive action. I don't often try new things.

Then Betsy sends me a beautiful spread surrounding the idea of daring to dream new Dreams. As I was pondering what that looked like in my own life, I happened upon an article about Marissa Mayer, a female creative exec for Google. She had a quote in the article that I fell in love with, because it embodied so many of my thoughts about my own fear. So my pages were born around that quote - it answered, for me, the questions that Betsy's pages raised in me.

Okay, enough words, onto an image: collaged ink sketch + acrylic paint + handwritten text + type-written text.

click image for large version

About fifteen minutes after I put the final touches on these pages, I found myself muttering the words, "I never really try new things!" with a little laugh. I caught myself in that phrase, then quickly wondered if journaling can work retroactively. Yikes bikes.