To Be Alive

 I have been doing the Woman Unleashed online retreat over the last few weeks. It's organized by Amber Kuileimailani Bonnici and consisted of a series of videos  by different tutors on a wide variety of subjects. One of my favourites was Lesley Riley's one on quotations and it inspired me to make this page (9 x 12") on heavy duty watercolour paper. I illustrated a quote by Haruki Murakami. I've used only part of it. The full quotation reads as follows:

Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back. That's part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads - at least that's where I imagine it - there's a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in awhile, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you'll live forever in your own private library.

You might have noticed it in the sidebar of this blog some weeks ago. I left it up there for ages as there is so much to think about in it.  Part of it (Store Those Memories) was added to my latest spread for The Documented Life Project 2015 as you can see here. 

The page started with a background of paint and stencilling (using Circles, Circles stancil as well as Picasso's Words one by Stencilgirl). I added collage with vintage images and paper napkins. I then stamped on the ART word (using a stamp from ARTspecially). It's a way to remember this quotation which at first reading seems quite negative but is in fact spurring us on to make sure we treasure our memories, good or bad. Of course there had to be a postage stamp too. That has almost become a signature for my art journalling pages.

I keep a lot of my memories not just in my heart but also on my camera card and external hard drive,  and I wanted to post these pictures from the garden even though they were taken a few days ago when the sun was out. Every moment is so fleeting and I wander around the garden daily trying to capture each new development.

clematis

ligularia with campanula in the background