hello cool blustery monday. i’m just here inside the pages of my newest visual journal.
this is what the sky is doing:
i cleaned out my flat file paper cabinet and found some vintage postage.
i’ve taken a renewed interest in cancelled postage. how nice to use neglected ephemera from the paper vault.
here’s what i intend for my new book. some cut & paste, some drawing & paint, some random recording of thoughts.
a record of my time on planet earth. of a sunday night in los angeles when the wind was blowing and the people of paris were still reeling, but increasingly hopeful.
i was deep in thought and no page in any of my books could contain all the words, but i got a few down. there’s a lot to consider. so many ways to think about what has happened.
this morning the trees were still shaking. acorns and leaves and small branches fallen like a carpet across the streets and sidewalks. the wind was howling. the sun was blazing. the world was intensely alive.
back to the pages of my newest book.
an envelope from long ago sent to me by someone…i can’t remember who. i cut it out knowing i would put it in one of my books one day. thank you. (no longer my p.o. box)
and finally, a house i passed on my morning walk.
so many different houses. so many different lives being lived just beyond these windows and doors. i’ve referenced this quote so many times on my blog, but it’s because i think of it so often. and find it so beautiful.
A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!
-charles dickens
i’m glad we’re learning more about the people who lost their lives in paris. all those unique human beings. i want to know about them. and i want them to know that who they were is being seen.
over and out from los angeles friends. be safe. be warm.
wish I could remember where I put my old wall paper scraps…. love the great fun you are having mixing up your pages!
Love your mix it up and stir it around style of your new journal. LOVE IT. Just thought that was worth emphasizing. I mirror your thoughts on what happened in Paris. I also want to know about the lives that were lost. I can only remember one other time when I felt so connected to so many people I’d never met or known and that was 9/11. Not that other tragedies went unnoticed but this time again I felt a deeply strong heart throb for them and the rest of us. I just don’t get it, but I do ‘get’ when a heart is broken and feeling helpless. I guess I as I read your words, I found myself nodding in agreement. Your words hit home and snuggled up inside my chest and that felt good cuz I know others ‘get’ that too.
I love this new sketchbook MAM. I’m really excited for when we leave for Beijing next summer because I intend on diving into Sketchbookery at that time and get to know my new city that way. In the meantime, I spend a few minutes each day looking at the beauty you share with the world. I feel exactly as you do about seeing the people who were killed in Paris. Some things needs to be seen and carried with us. xxxo
What page in your book don’t I love? It’s the gestures of creativity – our efforts to birth something of goodness and life-affirmation into the world – and our attention to the details of the lives we’re given and the earth around us that help us shout into the dark. And our willingness to walk alongside another. I have a friend from France whose family lives in Paris, and we shared tears this week. But we agreed that we share hope, too. Thanks for helping to shine the light.
Dear Mary Ann,
Thank you for your words. You are able to find the right words, using only some sentences. I’m always happy and thankful when i read what you write, especialy about the serious aspects of live. And i LOVE to see your new sketchbook!!! Have a nice day!
Super eye candy. Catching up after two weeks in Paris and France. Loved them and your writings.
Paris and France. Just back. I can only say the loveliest spot I have ever been too. I could have stayed a long time. Bytw I was much more concerned about flying home on Air France than I was worried about staying in in Paris. Glad to report a successful arrival with two sketchbooks full of drawings and watercolors and stacks ephemera more to add to it. Hmm might be phone book sized before I am done. Lol.
Happy to see your glorious patchworks again. They complement the painting and sketching so well ( especially those leaves, pods and blue blue sky.
Your last paragraph is so well and so lovingly expressed. I too am grateful for the vignettes of those who were murdered. They illuminate the loss.
Love your pages, and I adore vintage, and buried treasures, and combined with your art, this is just fabulous! I have missed visiting!
Mary Ann, you have no idea how I look forward to your “visits” every day. Todays was particularly special. Your whimsy is enfolded in your deep caring heart. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Mary Ann you have a beautiful soul. We French people will survive with courage and determination as we have done for over more than 1,000 years of civilization, we can be scared but it will not stop us from living our lives, we have to still enjoy the beauty of life but that does not mean that we shall rollover and play dead, we shall fight this scourge till they are all destroyed. I am an old lady who saw WW2 nothing new!!!
Annie v.
Beautiful Mary Ann. Beautiful words, beautiful images. Thank you.
xxoo
Wonderful pages ,wonderful ideas love seeing them, I agree about the stories they need to be told as their lives were stolen…my heart is heavy …