Dare: A Manifesto

I wrote this little manifesto a while ago.  I think it's the real reason that I started this blog, so I wanted to share it here.

From March 28, 2005 to March 26, 2006, I did one scrapbook layout a week to document my life as it was happening.  During those fifty-two weeks, I opened and closed several shows, visited Hong Kong, England, and the Galapagos Islands, got engaged, found out my Father had prostate cancer, learned to quilt, and revolutionized my thinking about scrapbooking forever.

From the very beginning, I loved scrapbooking because it was a way to marry my compulsive diary habit with photographs.  With an anthropologist on one side of the family and a professional photographer on the other, scrapbooking seemed the perfect union.  My first scrapbooks are wonderful (non-archival) books crammed full of details about what we ate on my birthday or funny interactions we had in some tropical hot tub on vacation. 

Several years ago, I was playing the good housewife and spent a month in Scranton, PA, where my then boyfriend (now husband) was doing his federal clerkship, and I knew no one.  Bored with cleaning house and commuting to and from the grocery store, I took the car on a tour of a nearby mall town.  I accidentally stumbled upon an AC Moore and a supply hoarding habit began. Armed with 12x12 paper, deckle-edge scissors and a Sizzix machine, a new era of creative chaos was launched.  My books started to incorporate patterned paper and stickers and lots of die cuts.  My focus was on beautiful, matching, two-page, multi-photo layouts.

Then, came art. 

I started reading scrapbooking magazines, and my mind literally opened.  Beautiful pages full of product I had never seen, enlarged photos, paint, hidden journaling, computer fonts, one-page layouts, transparencies…!  There was so much out there and I was hungry to try it all.  And, so I embarked on my little project: one page a week.

I experimented.  I played.  I learned.

I made huge mistakes, and didn’t care.  This book was just for me.  A visual diary and even the goofs represented what kind of a week it had been.

After that, it seemed a natural choice to jump aboard one woman’s crazy idea on an online message board: one page a day. 

It was a battle. 

I was slow.  My life kept getting in the way of scrapbooking.  I didn’t have enough photos or topics…but that struggle produced two exciting results: (1) Being forced to create every single day made scrapbooking more than a habit – it became a lifestyle; (2) I had to push past the glass ceiling I had erected for myself.  I had to make decisions faster.  Try new things without obsessing.  I had to get creative with fresh ideas and new stories.

Moreover, somewhere in all that mess, I uncovered myself.  I discovered a scrapbooking philosophy that keeps me excited and striving to learn:  DARE.  As in, dare to be different.  Dare to try it.  Dare to say it.  Dare to do it.  Dare to be yourself.  Dare to call yourself an artist.

Thanks for listening!

Comments

[Hagit]

Wonderful post. I have all kinds of "projects" running through my head as I work, I tell myself that I'll devote 10 minutes a day for art, just glue something down, make a card, make a postcard. But life gets in the way. At least I can say for sure that I do something creative every week. :)

[Nat]

I love this!!!! Wonderful post!

[sue brown]

what a fantastic journey you must have recorded.

[Sue Clarke]

Julie...TFS this post. Creating is such a wonderful thing to do and it does help to develope the self. I still don't dare to call myself an artist (I'm more comfortable with scrapper)...but one day soon that will change!

[Cheryl]

I want to see some of those pages!

[Cheryl]

Oh...and this explains a lot about your scrapbooking style in 2008.

[Suzie Webb]

I love your manifesto, your journey sounds like so much fun, and I love how you've embraced your freedom to create :)
Suzie

[Christina]

Love this peek into your "evolution"! Thanks so much for sharing it with us!

I've tagged you gain on my blog because yo know I love ya!

Christina

[angie]

what a great philospohy and evolution! i really enjoy your art and your blog - so glad you share:)