Throat Chakra Journal Page

When a new box of art supplies I recently ordered arrived, the first thing I wanted to use were the new Artistcellar chakra stencils. They still have the little ATC-sized chakras stencils too, but some of the fine detail is hard to get (if you are a messy, loose-handed artist like me!)

Well, I am a little rusty on my symbolism, and pulled out the first one that caught my eye, a pretty triangle/heart combination. After I looked up what it symbolized I should not have been surprised--it is the throat chakra symbol.

For at least the past 20 years, that has been the chakra that I needed to work on. Why? Panic disorder overwhelmed me back in about 1992 and I got to the point where I couldn't even speak. I had agoraphobia also. I suffered from frequent sore throats, and even had a barium x-ray to see what was wrong.

 Finding my voice, using my voice, getting over the fear of speaking, and even being able to actually speak took a long time and a lot of work.

Although I had a problem using my voice, I did express myself through art and writing, and also began to study reiki as part of my healing process. So, 20 years later the throat chakra is still the one that calls to me from a pile of stencils.

I used a painted deli paper background on the journal page...something that I learned about (and love) from taking a recent Julie Fei-Fan Balzer class. I chose to use one of my painted papers that had a lot of turquoise; blue is the color of the throat chakra. I used an ordinary pen to trace the shape, then filled in with lime green marker and lime silk acrylic paint. Why lime? Well, I love it, but also, it is the color of the heart chakra.

After the chakra design was done, it seemed that the page needed more, so I added some words that felt appropriate using little alphabet stamps and Dina Wakely empowerment words, applied with a black archival ink stamp pad. Last, I added little dots of turquoise lumiere paint. I always seem to put dots in my journal pages...why, I don't know. They probably symbolize something, so if you know, leave me a comment please.

For the extroverts of the world, this the reason I repeated the word "brave" many times: it takes an enormous amount of energy and focus and bravery to beat panic disorder, and to learn to speak up without stuttering, stumbling, opening your mouth and having no sound come out, or worse--crying.

Well, Hello Dolly…I’m in Just Steampunk, Volume 2!

If I were someone who follows numerology or plays lotto, I’d think there was some meaning to two dates—1/11/12 and 11/1/12. The first date is when I posted to my blog about the art paper dolls I made for the Roses on My Table group’s steampunk paper doll trade. The second date is when I opened my mailbox and found a complimentary copy of Just Steampunk, vol. 2, with my dolls on page 101 of the magazine.

Several months ago I sent an email to the magazine with some jpegs of the dolls that I kept for myself. (I made five, traded two and kept three.) I hadn’t heard one way or another about the dolls other than getting a polite response thanking me for my submission. So, I was jumping up and down, twirling and squealing when I opened to page 101 and found a full page with my three steampunk dolls!

One of the dolls (top photo, doll on the left) is particularly symbolic. Back in 2007 I wrote an article in Cloth Paper Scissors called “Painting Out the Panic.” One of the pieces used to illustrate the article is a figure I call “Broken Chakra Girl.” BCG symbolized my struggle with panic disorder, particularly the fifth (throat) chakra. My anxiety would cause my throat to constrict and I wouldn’t be able to speak. I also got frequent sore throats at the time.

 I used BCG’s face for one of these dolls, cut her hair, gave her a top hat, changed the color of the turquoise throat design to match her steampunk style, and made her neck a normal length. Somehow the steampunk version represents healing, with her strong, mechanical, shiny body and bold stance. Her green broken heart is no longer exposed, and is protected by her steampunk armor.

All of the dolls are made with original faces that I drew or painted. The bodies are made of painted, recycled coffee filters, painted and stamped recycled tea bags adhered to fabric, or paper. The metal textured legs and arms are cut paper from Just Steampunk, volume 1. The body with the corset and the clockworks are also cut paper from the first issue. The body parts are attached with tiny brads so they can be posed and played with.

I would like to extend a special thank you to Karen at The Graphics Fairy http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ for the use of her vintage images of butterfly wings and top hats; to Zinnia at Roses on My Table for creating such a wonderful online art community; and to JoAnn at Roses on My Table for running such a great group. http://rosesonmytable.ning.com/

Fuscia Zetti Self Portrait

Back in 2000, I was an emotional mess. I had very bad panic disorder, and was trying many methods to rid myself of it—from traditional medical treatments to all kinds of alternative therapies. I decided to spend a lot of time doing art in order to heal. One of the first things I did was an oil self portrait. True, it doesn’t look exactly like me, but I painted the way I felt, which wasn’t pretty. Needless to say, no one but me liked the portrait.

However, it was a starting point. I decided to scan it, alter it a little in photoshop, then digitally embellish it. I called the first variation my Picasso Self Portrait. I later used a variation of it to do one of my first art quilts, and it was used to illustrate an article I wrote for Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine called Painting Out the Panic.

I decided to add my favorite yellow fabric design behind the Picasso Self Portrait, and use that image for my business card and also for some of my mini quilt Art-O-Mat blocks.

Recently, I had an ATC trade with my Arts in the Cards group. This month, the color prompt was fuscia. I drew a blank on the color fuscia, so I started looking through my stacks of fabrics and papers and unfinished artwork for inspiration. Nothing really struck me, so I decided to revisit an old theme: self portraits. For reasons I don’t fully understand, I keep coming back to my first self portrait. I have painted other self portraits over the past 12 years, but this one speaks to me the most.

I took out the yellow background and added several other fuschia designs—a scan of a page from a journal that I painted with beet juice, a fuscia mandala that I drew during my lunch hour, and a photo of a wet leaf on a sidewalk that I manipulated in photoshop into shades of fuscia. I also changed some color on the face.

Since I have been enamored of the Zetti trend, I added, in photoshop, the black and white harlequin band at the top. After printing the design, it seemed to need something extra, so I added inspirational words printed on Extravorganza, along with some ribbon and seed beads.