Copyright: All artwork/content protected under ©2007-2011 Lynne Ciacco

All content herein copyright © Lynne Ciacco


Saturday, April 2, 2011

Moleskine Travelogue

While on "holiday" or travelling, I tend to gather bits of paper...business cards from restaurants and artists, gallery and city guides, newspaper clippings , etc.  In order to have some sort of hardcopy souvenir of places been and seen, I glue the cuttings into unlined journals from the Dollar Store.  I've found, however, that it's hard to keep up with the cutting, gluing, sorting, arranging and marginal note-making so I usually end up with a bag full of papers and clippings to sort out once I'm back home.  This situation results in a pile of stuff sitting on my desk for months (dare I say years?), awaiting my careful ministrations.  By the time I finally get back to the pile, the memories have faded and it's difficult to put it all into some semblance of order.  A pleasure has turned into a task.

Enter the Moleskine.  My daughter gave me this little book and it seems the perfect solution because it's small. 

Small is beautiful @ 3.5 x 5.5 inches.










(Now she is back in Montreal,
says the back cover)






I personalised the covers.  There's a little pocket in the back where I've stashed luggage tags.



Pages with clippings from gallery guides, ferry ticket, business card, which all serve as memory prompts to things I've done and seen during the trip.



Here, clippings from a local paper, some more gallery guide pictures, and a cut-up paper bag from a native art gallery, where I bought a little souvenir, provide a scrapbook collage effect.


It is not making art, but it is a creative process.  And it's a satisfying way to keep a little trip diary.  I'm not one for journaling and I seem to have given up sketching, so this is a good compromise for me. 

The best way to make art while on holiday is to attend a workshop for that purpose. 

I recently had the opportunity to attend a 2 hour demo of Liquitex acrylics at my favourite art supply store, Opus, presented by Oakland, CA  artist,
Michele Theberge.  She has some free stuff on her website, as well as a link to her blog, if you'd like to check it out.

The demo was informative and fun, but the best part was a complimentary bag of goodies to take home!   Consequently, I have two small canvases that I'm trying to find time and space to paint stashed in my bedroom .  This situation is causing more anxiety than pleasure!  I guess I'll be carting them back home unfinished instead of a paper bag full of clippings this time. 
Not sure if that's much of an improvement!
When will I ever learn?





8 comments:

  1. Wonderful insight into your memory books of travels. I enjoyed the video, music and images making.,,thanks!
    I too have attended demos at my local art store...Golden was great and what a thrill dragging home a 'bag' full of samples...fun!

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  2. I enjoyed seeing your travel journal. I agree--if you don't keep up with it while you are out, it is so hard to deal with all the collected bits later!

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  3. Blue Sky Dreaming,
    Oh, I'm a "Golden girl" too, for the most part. I hadn't realized Liquitex had been the forerunner of acrylic products and I have a new respect for their stuff now. Nice to have options. I don't have a good art supply in the city I live near back east, so it's a treat and a torture when I come out west and wander the aisles of Opus. But free samples are the best!

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  4. Robin,
    I hesitated to show this little journal because of the randomness of its contents, so I'm happy that you enjoyed having a peek at it. You sound like someone who's been there and done that, dragging home mementos from a trip to deal with later. I wonder if you've done it with workshop projects? I still have a paperclay doll head that I made in a class years ago that's waiting for a body.

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  5. I've used Liquitex for years on sculpture,fabric,furniture and now canvas,and havn't found anything more versatile so far.I'm about to start some paintings on board,something I havn't done since student days....then it was for ecomomic reasons!

    I sense lots of energy in all your West Coast posts and I look forward to seeing how it goes when you return home.

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  6. Forest Dream Weaver,
    I was using oil paints in school...can't remember what brand, and only discovered acrylics years later, on my own. Oddly, my oil paintings looked like they were painted with acrylics, and my acrylics had more of an oil feel to them.

    I do get a real buzz when I come home to the west coast. I hope it'll translate into creative energy when I get back east, but I will have a lot of mundane things to deal with over the next several months,so we shall see. Fingers crossed!

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  7. oh i always immensely enjoy the glimpses of your creative process that you offer us - and loved the 'randomness' of this post, this seems to be the swirling of all creative chaos, without which nothing can ever blossom...
    my work is much simpler from this point of view, i bring everything back in my camera :-)
    (but less connected to the world and its endless textures, i am a very tactile person even if i am so obsessed with photography).

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  8. Roxana,
    Your love of the tactile, and of textures, shines through in your beautiful, evocative photographs. I've taken quite a lot of photos on this trip and don't know how I'll ever get around to putting them up on my blog(s). I have a lot of fodder to play with in Photoshop, too. Why are we so insatiable to keep making more images?

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