Old journal covers

These next couple of uploaded images are actually covers for my journals I completed in high school. I made the covers from magazine images, water color, textbook images/text, clip art, permanent markers, high school literary magazines, test questions, and even a piece of tape that my boyfriend's grandmother used to label a plate of kolaches for me (she spelled my name "Emiley", which I had never seen before. The tape was just too adorable to throw out)

Why bring them off of their dusty book shelf after three years? Well, a few reasons...
As I was pondering possible topics for my honors thesis (I feel so strange calling a senior project an "honors thesis", but that's international programs, for you) and I noticed that visual art culture has always been of interest me. When I was in Spain, literally half of the pictures I took were of graffiti. In China, I took pictures of a ton of billboards and advertisements. I asked myself if my fascination with graffiti-like material were new. Then I thought to art I had created. In my journals, I always did something funky with the inside and outside covers.

Now, mind you, I realize I am not a person with what you would call...oh, what's the word. Talent. However, my young 20s is that time when I'm supposed to explore all those untapped areas of intrigue I may not have had the chance to channel earlier. It's ok if I'm awkward because I am, well, young 20 something. Worse case scenario, I can just regard it similarly as hippies do their Woodstock hair dos. "Eh, I was 20 something".

Also, these are going up so I have a digitally protected copy of something I spent a lot of time in high school creating. I remember going to "journal parties" with my friends Emma, Katie and Davina (I thought it was so cool that their first initials, all together, created my entire name's initials) and admiring each others' creative patterns and seeing what went through each others' minds when we simply let our academically-overloaded (yet often lazy) minds let the more visual side take over.

I realize we were not the only ones to visual journal--in high school I started to get into an artist named Dan Eldon (from Cedar Rapids, was killed in Africa, was a huge influence on my photography in high school, made incredible journals which his family later published, may bring him up later). My sister Sarah also journals in a similar way. And there are tons of books floating around about self exploration and art for the self. I think one is called, "Leaving a Trace" and it has many different journaling prompts readers can use to start. So perhaps this is a reminder to myself that there is a journaling, art-for-the-self culture that I ought to reconnect with.

:) It's certainly fun.