On these pages, you will find my art journey. As part of my recent course-work and a big part of my learning, I kept an Art Journal (or Spirit Journal). I decided that as well as my traditional coil-bound journal, I would also like to try to have my art journey documented online. And this is it!

This Art Journey is about taking what is often very private and putting it front & centre for reflection & exploration. It is an exciting experience. And, in many ways, it is just another way of making art. I am now ready to invite you to take a look beyond the kimono.

I invite you to visit this Art Journey where you will find a place of art. You will see art pieces from my course. You will see pieces by artists who influenced me on my journey. You will see photos which are my art. The photos carry statements and images of my emotional place on this amazing journey.

I hope you find a way to look at beyond the kimono in another way. This Art Journey is about my photography art. There are a few images that come from a collection of other photos. These images have been around so long they feel like me but they are not mine. I just like them and like to use them. That’ s why I have included them here.

IMAGINATiON

It is important to create a list of what we believe about our imagination. We need to exercise our imagination to make it work or perform. Our imagination is always with us no matter what others might tell us! We have dreams & daydreams that enable us to elaborate our images into stories. Our ability to create and tell stories is one of the very characteristics that makes us human.

A fractal is a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be subdivided in parts. Each part is approximately a reduced-size copy of the whole. The term fractal was first used by Benoît Mandelbrot in 1975. It is derived from the Latin fractus meaning “broken” or “fractured”. A fractal as a geometric object generally has the following characateristics:

A fractal has a fine structure at arbitrarily small scales.   A fractal is too irregular to be easily described in traditional Euclidean geometric language.  A fractal is self-similar.  A fractal has a Hausdorff dimension which is greater than its topological dimension.  A fractal has a simple and recursive definition. Because fractals appear similar at all levels of magnification, they are often considered to be infinitely complex. There are natural objects that approximate fractals. Some of these include clouds, mountain ranges, lightning bolts, coastlines and snow flakes. However, not all self-similar objects are fractals—for example, the real line is formally self-similar but fails to have other fractal characteristics.

If we take one image of our self as the sum of who we are then we sacrifice many other things like FLEXIBILITY, SPONTANEITY and CREATIVITY. Often our inner conflcts block our outward life. Our images are a way to come to know how rich and varied we are. Our stories provide verbal detail of our richness as do our shadows. Image making is a multi-dimensional & multi-layered process.

IMAGES ARE ALREADY THERE

Awareness is about going to the place where our images are located

KNOWING THE RICHNESS OF IMAGINATION

Our imagination is so very powerful. Imagination is the most important faculty we possess.  There is a relationship forged with our deepest self when we engage the imagination in our own process. There is a lifetime of patterns cultivated in our imagination. Whether we can access the patterns or not is another whole area for exploration. We have patterns of habits and thoughts that are embedded in our imagination.  All of this is based on past experiences. Making art is one way of knowing what we believe.

By changing our thinking we can also change our experience. We have thinking patterns that create our experiences. To know about our beliefs, values and experiences we have to confront our self and our fears and our resistance. Our fears exist to protect us.