Trees Handmade Journal Cover

Fabriano Artistico paper, paint, ink, molding paste, vintage images, leaves, maps.

July 30-31 2011

I spent the past weekend amngst the trees of Santa Barbara.  I attended Orly Avineri’s TREES workshop.  It was held in Darcy’s wonderful art studio.  This is the cover of my journal.  I made the journals for the workshop using Teesha Moore’s amazing 16 page journal directions, you can find the directions here.  It was a relaxing weekend of art journaling and friendship.  There are many wonderful memories of humanity, creativity and love.  There were long passionate conversations and art journaling sessions late into the night filled with laughter and warmth.  Magical gifts in deed.  I will show you more spreads from my trees journal in the coming days.

Trees have always been a very important part of my life.  I grew up walking in the trees of our 5 acre property in Montana.  We had birch and pine, and apple trees.  We would drive in the woods, dig up seedlings and bring them home and plant them.  Even today trees play an important part of my life.  We live on a small piece of property in a residential area in Long Beach, California, yet I can count over 3o trees we have planted in the six years we have lived here.  Some we purchased from eBay as seedlings and are now almost 20 feet tall.  I love these trees, they signify my relationship.

All my life I have had a reoccurring dream about a special apple tree that is very comforting to me.  We had an ancient apple tree on my family property, at the base of the tree we buried our family pets and it became a very special pet cemetery.  I used to love to lay down under the tree, look up into the tree and visit with the pets of my life.   It was a special place for me.  The apples from that tree were small but I always remember them as tasting wonderfully sweet.  In times of stress I dream about laying under that tree and sleeping surrounded by my various dogs, cats, birds and even a sweet calf that died.  All the pets of my life are there protecting and watching over me.

Peace.