Visual Journals

I have written journal's since I was about 12 years old, and I try to write in my journal as often as I can. Sometimes I don't feel like it or haven't the motivation but I always feel better when I do. The thing is, if I don't document my daily thoughts and feelings then they are lost and I will forget I ever had them.

I have a book by Danny Gregory, he is an avid visual documenter, and he suggests a visual diary to help with drawing skills. I'm sure it does, but thats not my motivation. My motivation is to document my existence. I can look back over my life and say 'Oh I'd forgot I felt that' or 'I remember feeling that!'. If I don't document these tiny moments in my life, they are lost because my brain doesn't class them as important enough to keep. If I had emotional stress or tragedy or I was really happy by something, my brain would keep it; but the tiny things, the mundane, they are lost as if they never happened. I find this loss quite interesting because most of our lives are filled with mundane experience.

I have found that if I document each day, hidden between the mundaneness, are tiny little diamonds of light that I need to keep; so I keep them in my notebooks.

Right now, I've opened my journal on the 2nd Feb 2013. I've just read a reflection about the amazing questions my daughter asks. She has the most fantastical brain and she is always asking questions like...'Why is the sky blue?' and 'Where does language come from?' On that particular day she asked... 'Who painted those lines on the road?' 

I don't remember where I was, I don't remember anything about that conversation, but I do feel sentiment when I read it and I'm reminded how I feel about her. In a sense I re-live the emotion. My brain had left that experience on the side of the road of life, but my heart had not; thats why I do it.

Drawing is harder than writing because I have to try and draw myself, looking at myself, and I find that hard. I also see in my mind how things really look, but my drawing ability doesn't support that 'reality' and it's hard. I sometimes feel that I've ruined the memory, because my brain will replace my precious memory with my naff drawing. Despite this, I have to keep going with it. I suppose its just another one of my collections.

The image above was a from an experience I had in a Charity Shop. I had seen some novelty salt and pepper pots; they were two ceramic little rabbits. The ladies in the charity shop had put them on the shelf facing each other and when I saw them, I thought about how much fun my kids would have at meal times...watching the salt and pepper fall onto their meals out of the rabbits head. 

As I was paying for them, I placed them on the counter and I noticed that the tall rabbits shape fit the crouching rabbits shape and I realised they actually fit together. The lady at the checkout said 'They are lovely aren't they, I knew they wouldn't last long in the shop'. 

I was supprised how fast my brain was working at this point, I had noticed the shape of the two rabbits and that they may fit together, and I also had noticed that the crouching rabbit had rosy cheeks and the tall rabbit didn't. Despite my internal observation I went ahead with the purchase but inside my head was the uncomfortable feeling of 'I'm not sure about this purchase anymore'. 

When I got home and opened them up, my fears were confirmed as I put the rabbits in the position the manufacturer had intended...and 'not to my surprise' I had purchased a couple of novelty salt and pepper pots in the shape of two rabbits pro-creating. I found it interesting how the subtle change of the rabbits positions completely changed how I viewed them; it put the rosy cheeks of the crouching rabbit into context...

You may think I would have put such tacky objects into the bin, but I couldn't, I hide them and when I want a good laugh I get them out. When Ive finished laughing, I put them away in their sordid little box.

Needless to say, my children never saw the rabbits!