Inside-Out View of Art Journaling :: a guest post

As you know, my guy and I create art journals together once a week. Over the past two years he has become a huge supporter of not just me, but of art journaling. I wanted him to share his experience on the blog because he has a view of art and art journaling that I can no longer tap into. When we started this journey, he did not identify as an artist, but now identifies as one I think as much as I do. That is why I called this an inside-out view... with no further ado, here is his story.

  What art journaling has done for me!

I think that the process of art journaling has given me many gifts over the last few years. Most importantly it has given me an opportunity to share emotional ideas and visual art with my best friend and partner! The journaling process has also given me time and space to develop my own style of art and art making.

As a beginning artist it was pretty scary starting off since I hadn't actually done art for maybe 25 years. But the using art journaling as a stage for my personal art helped to erase the anxieties of starting something new. The journal acts as my own personal place where I can keep art that I am working on and show the art that I want to share with others.

The process of journaling has also become a space to explore current life events. I have explored emotionally stressful times and times of joy within my art and have been able to create a feeling of closure for myself as well as save the emotions of joy that I would like to hold on to in the years to come.

The process of art journaling has reminded me that life is full of joy even when times seem to be at their most difficult. I can always go back and look at how I experienced the best times and remember how I overcame the most difficult times in my life.

~ Christopher Luckett