Consider the artist..BJ

This really hits close to home.  I am not dismissing these fancy people, art is what we make it.  But the majority of us are just everyday people with a PASSION for creative outlet to share with others and hopefully make a decent buck.  

The COWGIRL COLLECTION Journal that I am in the process of creating has taken a lot of thought. ideas kicked around in my brain,  Which I will remind you of the past 11 months I have been in rehab recovering from West Nile Virus.  I do not tell you this for a pity sale, but to share the fortitude and desire to just not survive but to be able to find IF I could even do any kind of art.  It was a driving force in helping with a successful recovery, my definition of successful recovery. Of the many people in the facility who helped guarantee that I had the tools and support to achieve that, and in the end it was up to ME.  I could have given up, in fact I tried. 

Now the creative juices are flowing, I am even dreaming of it, Bouncing ideas off my fellow "inmates".  They all took it in.   Most didn't really have a clue as to what I was up to, But they listened and encouraged.  My self confidence was coming back,  It made a huge difference in my recovery.  I am very thankful for my life coming back.  I still have walking challenges, but thank God my brain is working great.

So after days of thinking of the idea .  The thought process. I knew I wanted to create something that would help women to remind them of their worth and value as a real woman.  Not a feminist but a woman.  Then it was on to the images that I wanted to use.  Some of my earliest memories are of horses, even to running off, chasing one, maybe I was 4, and wanting to be a cowgirl. Of course I love vintage thus I went looking for vintage cowgirl images, and there were tons of them and they had to be copyright free. 

So many thoughts, then to choose the right images, that again, would speak to me and others.  It is very important to me that whatever I create,  speaks and is heard. And so begins the process of choosing the "just right" images.

This journal has been weeks in the making. From the images, the size, any other graphics that might be needed, the kind of paper that will be used for the print.  That in itself required a great deal of research, I'm still working on that,  the cover and its decorations.  I decided on a real leather cover. the color of the cover.  Also I designed and purchased "empowerment, strength, charms to use as bookmarks, I just had to find just the right ones, again they must speak.  Sounds pretty crazy, right?  No, just the temperment  of an artist.

And so, I was finally released to leave the facility and staying with my son and his family.  Which meant a new printer and experimenting with paper.  The journal is. in fact finished, ready to be printed, but again, I m not just printing it on any paper.  Yet another stage of the creation.  I am creating something to be useful, cherished, and kept for a very long time.  

I know that todays post is long, but important for people who support artists or want to support us, maybe can understand better just what creation process, at least I use.   I AM AN ARTIST, A WOMAN, HEAR ME ROAR

Please feel free to ask questions. If I can answer it, I will.  Be blessed peeps, I do know that God is working with me