Journal Page Swap - Milliande Art Community for Women

I have been involved in a monthly journal page swap on the Milliande Art Community for Women web site.  This is a wonderful community of women artists involved in many different mixed media projects.  I can't even remember how I stumbled onto it but I am so glad I have.  There are many different groups that you can join and I felt compelled to join this journal swap group.  Since January we have swapped 2 journal pages a month with the lovely Dawna Quinn as our host.  She provides us with two prompts each month that we interpret on our pages and then sets up the swap lists.  I usually don't post these pages but I do save a photo of them as I do with all my projects and journals.  But this prompt really made me think and it brought something of me into the page.  I am writing about it here for me so that I can remember what those feelings and events were that I put down on the page.

The prompt:

Prompt One: Pick a medium that you may have been putting off trying, or perhaps one that you have the supplies for but haven't explored for some time. Through this exploration dig into the traditions that are part of your life and share the event or feeling evoked through the practice of that tradition in your life.

I have recently purchased black gesso.  I wanted it so badly and ordered it through Amazon and then couldn't wait for it to arrive.  When it did I looked at it in horror because for the life of me I couldn't think what to do with it.  I also ordered some distress markers and haven't really used them either.  So these were the supplies I decided to explore.

The next part was the hard part.  I wasn't quite sure what to make of this.  "Traditions that are part of your life"?  Feelings evoked?  Practice of that tradition?  Huh?

So I sat down with my blank 5 x 7 inch piece of water color paper, my black gesso and distress markers.  And sat.......and sat.....and stared.....and stared...... And then it came to me.  I am a Radiologic Technologist or as lay people call us an X-ray Technician although I cringe when I hear that.  We have a running joke in the field that we "do our best work in the dark".  This came from all those years of having to process those x-rays in the darkroom.  And we like the lights down fairly low when we are actually trying to do those x-rays so we can see our light field.  Perfect!!  Black - dark. 

I covered my paper with the black gesso.  OK.  Now what?  Thinking about what I do made me think of the x-ray images. I am very proud of what I do.  Taking the time to get the perfect image with everything just right takes a lot of training, knowledge and experience.  And those images can help a physician make a diagnosis that could help save a life or help the physician know how to set that fracture.   I think the images themselves are quite beautiful.  The black background with the white bones and the varying shades of gray in the soft tissue densities.  OK.  Beauty.  I had just received a new stamp of a rose.  I stamped the rose image onto some script paper and colored the rose with the distress markers.  I decided to use a much loved stamp with a quote that picks up the sentiment I was trying to convey.

I hope my swap partner for June loves it as much as I do.

Thanks for stopping by.
~Pam