What made journaling an indespensible part of my artistic life? Teaching journaling to the next generation. After journaling off and on through high school and college, I came back to it seriously and consistently in January 2002. That’s when I got to teach writing on the Principia Upper School Teton Trip. I have now completed 6 volumes since the beginning of 2002. I love to look at them slowly taking over the bookshelf next to my bed. (#4 is still lost – “on vacation” I prefer to say…) I taught the writing again in 2004, and this year finally got to teach the art part. I was pretty thrilled about that idea, as you can see from this opening page.

(For best blog-enjoyment results, press this iTunes button and purchase the Cavatina for a mere 99¢ & listen to it while reading this wonderfully long post.)

I spent 3 weeks (21 August – 11 September 2005) teaching journaling and children’s literature at Arts For The Soul in Steamboat Springs, Colorado again this summer. It was quite an adventure! I made a few new friends and got to hang out with some old ones too. Hiked every Saturday with the younger staff and our energetic director, John Sant’Ambrogio (who might actually be something like 73, but thinks he is one of the younger staff. And that’s all that really matters anyway, right?) This time my husband Gabriel (who created this adorable website – thanks honey!) got to come out for Labor Day weekend, and my mom joined me for 3rd Session.

The evening concerts performed by the professional string quartet are always a special treat for me. I have to soak up as much music as I can, because most of my regular life is wrapped up in the visual arts… On Tuesday, 6 September 2005, (3rd Session) we ate at Outlaws, a classy restaurant that opens in the off-season especially for the AFTS group. The musicians performed a Late Beethoven program, which included the Cavatina movement from the String Quartet No. 13 in B flat major (”Lieb”), Op. 130. John explained that Beethoven was completely deaf when he wrote this piece, and yet it moved him so deeply that he couldn’t be in the room to even watch a performance because it would make him cry. He also explained that we would hear the cello (John Sant’Ambrogio), viola (Paul Reynolds), and 2nd violin (Jane Price) play one melody while the 1st violin (Dmitri Pogorelov) would lift up from that earthly sound and float a heavenly melody over the top of the composition. It was exquisite. As John explained the structure of the piece, I could see what that looked like. I didn’t have my journal with me that night, so I began to draw using the only materials I had available: a brown pen and a brown paper bag.
Above, you can see how I taped the sketch into my journal, and made notes about how I would like to develop the idea.

After the concert, I showed the sketch to my friend Dmitri, and explained how I would love to put it on a 4-foot canvas and really develop the surfaces with a good amount of painterliness. His reaction, as a musician, was very interesting:

“Big? Really? To me this piece is very small…” he said, holding his hands close to his heart and folding his shoulders inward.

That gave me an idea. Just then, I remembered that I was scheduled to present something about my process of making art at a panel called “Artists on Art” on Thursday. I decided to develop this idea in two different ways, so the students could see how in art, there isn’t only one right answer – there might be several.

Below, you can see how I was originally imagining the composition.

Notice how the ethereal 1st violin shape is balanced on the curving 2nd violin shape. The biggest paper I had to work with was a spread in my journal, not a 4-foot canvas, but you get the idea. I used acrylics to make this painting, and there are about 4 translucent layers that make up the background.

Next, I puzzled about how to do a small, precious version of the same composition. I was immediately reminded of those little wooden devotional triptychs that often reveal an image of the virgin and child inside. Here’s an example. (No, I did not make this one…) But it had to fit in my journal, so I made my triptych out of paper, instead of wood. I am not sure how it will last over time, but we’ll see.

I began with the center image and then worked out to the side panels, which represent the clear, starry nights that make midnight in Colorado so magical. The front faces of the panels are decorated with angels in a bronze color scheme – sort of representing church doors.

Just as I was finishing the triptych, it was time to attend another concert the next night. That evening, we took the students down the hill to Wild Horse Gallery, where they got to listen to the quartet read through some music as artist and gallery owner Richard Galusha painted a portrait of Dmitri. I spent the evening trying to evoke the bit of time when Dmitri told me how he imagined the Cavatina. Pencil sketches accumulated around the outside of the triptych. (I added a bit of color later…) I was interested to watch myself trying to picture such a small event, an almost nothing of a moment, through several related gesture drawings instead of painting a complete representation.

Here’s the visual version of Beethoven’s Cavatina as inspired by Dmitri:

AFTS became a bridge like the Devil’s Causeway between painting, music and writing. I found myself exploring the unfamiliar landscape of music with nothing but my brushes and pencils. The whole thing was exhilirating.

This week was a breath of fresh air! The 14 Principia Upper School students and two supervisors arrived at the Teton Science School on the 25th of January. I woke up at 6:00am most mornings and enjoyed the solitary blue light that comes before dawn. I like to sit in the dining lodge before the students arrive for breakfast and watch the sun come up to light the mountains.

Next, Margaret Holt (the art instructor) and I (the writing instructor) would hold a two-hour nature journaling workshop. We helped the students with their drawing and creative writing skills. The students spent every afternoon out in the field with Robin and Elise, the TSS ski instructors, where they learned about local species and habitats. Evening programs included snow science, a talk about the lives of Mardy and Olaus Murie – a famous naturalist couple, and a folk guitar concert by Beth McIntosh. The students learned to work together as a group, to be more observant of their surroundings, and to be confident in their work. For some of them, drawing and writing in a nature journal was a new thing. For some, it was the physical activity of snowshoeing and crosscountry skiing that was new. Every student learned something outside his or her comfort zone.

The other delightful thing about this group is that the seniors that came on this trip are the same kids for whom I wrote A Walk in the Rainforest in 1992. Only now they’re a lot taller. And some of them are becoming writers and artists themselves.

Check out the Principia Upper School Teton Trip website!

This page is from my senior year in high school. I got to go on the Principia Upper School Teton Trip for the second time. It was a week out of school at the end of January to spend at the Teton Science School on the edge of the Grand Teton National Park. We stayed in cabins, far out of town in a vast white wildness. We spent the mornings studying creative writing and drawing. Afternoons found us out in the field. We cross-country skied and snowshoed for 3-4 hours every day, studying the mountain habitats. This trip was about making connections between art, science, and writing. It was also about seeing oneself as something more than a high school student with a certain amount of friends, a certain GPA, a certain sports ability…

It’s about taking responsibility for your own creativity and your own education.

Media:
Writing with watercolors and black ink pen.