Points of Two is an experiment in journaling with myself and Roben Marie! Check out our archives to see the previous weeks' pages.
Our prompt for this, our final week, was where I want to go in 2011.
I’ve been working on a portfolio website for myself behind the scenes, and for that, had to actually gather together all 51 Points of Two pages to put into a single gallery. Seeing them that immediately, opposed to over the course of a year, showed me a window into myself I’d been missing. A glance, long and loving, at where I’d started and where I ended.
This whole project started innocently enough as a Facebook status update.
Yes, a little idea we both had, a way to chronicle the year and keep our journals in our hearts. We started with that one idea and ran with it.
It took a week to figure out the name.
robenmarie@xxxxx
Perspective Play...?
kiraboshi@xxxx
to robenmarie
I like it! I kinda want to work discovery in there now, though...
Roben-Marie Smith
to me
Okay...let me think about that as well.
Have you thought of any?
samie kira
to Roben-Marie
Nothing concrete. I have all these vague ideas floating around in my head...i just need them to snap together!
For example, words:
discovery
point of view
perspective
difference
common
artistic
another
distance
togetherness
exploration
They just won't come together as I'd like!
Roben-Marie Smith
to me
Hey!
Okay, I took your words and here is what I have. I am running out of steam with this:
A Common Difference
An Artistic Discovery
Distance•Different•Discovery
Artistic Perspectives
Artistic Explorations
A Distant Exploration
Points-of-Two: an artistic discovery
I want to start work on my page for next Friday, but wondered if you could give me a little more to go on for the theme? I know we chatted about the difference between our worlds right now, but I want to make sure I am on the same page.
samie kira
to Roben-Marie
whee! I like these two:
A distant exploration
and
points of two
They're lovely and just light a spark in me! Which do you like best? Now that we have contenders, I hope you're not getting dizzy from thinking. I'm sorry for being so...unable to articulate.
OH! I thought it'd be fun to start with the differences in surrounding....I could journal about all the snow and freezing cold, and you can journal about the loveliness of Florida, even in winter. Or we can do something more deep for the first one....such as what we'd like to accomplish this year, or a journal entry around our "word" for this year (all the talk of it has me picking my own!).
And then we were off, thinking up ideas, coming up with prompts from our days, things that happened, the unique perspectives of one woman in Chicago and the other in sunny Florida.
What Points of Two has taught me is that I can pull art out of anywhere. Somewhere in the middle, our prompts turned from situations and feelings to materials we could use. Our daily lives spilled onto the page as we experimented with things we’d never used before - I distinctly remember searching Wal-Mart for cheesecloth to use on a journal page, and wondering how I’d even attach it!
(I ended up loving that page, and it remains one of my favorite)
If our initial goal was to create a page every week for an entire year, our secondary one became showing new and experienced journalers that there isn’t one way to make a journal page. I love the dichotomy of our work, and yet find myself loving and wishing I could make pages like Roben. We’ve always admired each others’ artwork (which is key to a lasting, creative friendship, I think) yet retain our own styles when trying something inspired by the other.
There were weeks when we happened to journal about the same thing without knowing about it, weeks when we were finishing up pages the morning of (okay, that one is mostly me, and I’m working on it!). Weeks when we used the same colors or images but in vastly different yet appealing ways.
I think my idea of a journal page has grown and stretched through this project, as well as what can be used on one. Roben began this year creating digital scrapbooking items, and many of her pages are a hybrid of hand-made and computer-edited pages, something that really excited me and got me exploring a new world of digital art. She even took many of my Points of Two pages from the beginning of the year and turned them into art bits and photo mats for digital use.
As I sit here writing my last entry for this wonderful project, I find myself excited and charged by the idea of finishing a year-long partnership with a close friend, one I’m blessed to have in my life. To complete something like this is an accomplishment, especially considering its humble beginnings. Who knew a little update and comments could turn into not only a year of creative wealth, but an interview in the upcoming Artful Blogging and a feature in Art Journaling? We never thought ahead more than a few weeks, and when asked to be part of these publications were touched and humbled our little project - done mostly for ourselves, if only in a public way - garnered so much attention and comments from readers around the world.
Thank you for coming along with us on this journey. This isn’t the last you’ll be hearing from us, but for now, we’re taking a long overdue break on our Fridays for reflection and maybe, just maybe, a bit of TV time.
love,
Samie Kira
