Ethnic Scrapbooking

Scrapbooking the President...

No not today.  I took a day off from spouting intellectual Presidential history to my kids today and let them do what they wanted.  Leah started her day with cooking lessons with Dad in the kitchen.  Jerin slept until like 3 pm, Jonathan went on a four hour hike with the neighbors, Joseph practiced his spelling and addition flash cards and I...I went to my scrapbook room at 6pm and played.

Here's what I did...so that I can have a little bit of art creep into my surroundings everyday.  I was on a bit of an inspiration high from visiting Anthropologie on Saturday.

I started out with two small journals I picked up for under $3.00 at Borders.

I love new journals...I don't think I've ever filled one up, but I love journals.  So far for the new year I have three.  The larger black one is for me to record my goals for my new consulting business.  The smaller one is to keep in my purse to jot down notes at meetings.

I also have a 2009 calendar type one that I keep by my bed to use as a gratitude journal...ummm I'm already 6 weeks behind in that one.

Just as Abraham Lincoln kept so many journals, my descendants will have plenty to fight over...although I doubt any of my writings will go for $3.44 million like one of Lincoln's speeches did last week at auction.

Here are the journals after I tinkered with them.

 

S.M.A.R.T. is some MBA way of thinking through your goals, so I thought I'd give it a try...so far it's working, it helps me keep in mind which types of projects I should accept.

NEXT...

NOTES JOURNAL - I had to resort to an address book style way of keeping up with all my login, usernames, passwords, and pin codes.  It is just mind boggling.  I had to clear the clutter in my mind and just write them all down in one place.  So... I literally cut pages out of (last year's) favorite journal and made up this little cutie.

I used chipboard from some packaging that came in the mail this week, scraps of ribbon leftover from another project, bits and pieces of ethnic fabric Kyna gave me over a year ago.  While watching 24, I made this to sit on my desk to remind me to be creative everyday.  I even lined the inside and back cover.

 

 

I guess you can call this my version of fabric scrapbooking.

Cultural Assimilation - scrapbook style

I came across this yesterday By ROY SONNEMA  .  For the full article CLICK HERE.

The most satisfying, and most unconventional approach to assimilating the past is found in the “W10: I do, I do” exhibit in the Hoag Gallery, a showcase of conceptual wedding dresses. W10 is a group of Latina women that first organized on the Inter-American campus of Miami Dade College under curator Yovani Bauta. Each of these women has struggled with the challenges of immigration, cultural assimilation and becoming part of an art community. Here the artists chose to adopt the wedding dress as the symbolic and expressive object of their collective experience.

Each dress becomes an artifact inscribed with a different autobiographical memory. One is assembled from old burlap, rope and coconut tree husks to suggest memories of a Caribbean past. Others are collage-like assemblages of photographs, paintings of faces and hands, and various memorabilia mixed like disheveled souvenirs. Still others incorporate expressive painting, applique or quilting technique. Ultimately, each dress becomes a personal scrapbook in human form that hints at a unique personal history, with references to places, experiences and memories that remain elusive.

I think this is a cool concept. I can envision one made up of photos of my ancestors coupled with quiting blocks, doilies, and fabric scraps. This really has my creative wheels spinning...what creative take do you have on this piece of art?

NAACP 100 years old

My fourth grader has been studying Ida B Wells-Barnett this week as one of her Black History month projects.  We both learned that she was one of the founders of the NAACP and we had a frank discussion about lynchings, mob actions and her writing career.  Today, I was quite surprised to hear that TODAY is actually the 100 year anniversary of the NAACP (and it's 100 day at school today too), so we had even more to talk about.

I love it when materials the kids study at school have a relevant place in today's world.  It just makes it all come alive and easier to remember too. 

I also took the opportunity to connect Mrs. Wells-Barnett to our family history, by explaining that our Great-Great-Great Grandfather may have read her articles in the late 1800's.

What I am concerned about it, in studying four different notable people for Black History Month, is how many biographies are missing from the library shelves that are written at a child's level. (note to self...book project during retirement years)

We've come a long way in the last 100+ years, but we have a long way to go.

Photo Credit:  library of congress