Jane's Journal

Jane was trained as a potter. She brought up three daughters working as a potter. After the girls left home Jane retrained as a library technician. I met Jane when I started working here eight years ago. We have been friends ever since. Jane and I have so much in common. We are both creative, we love art and we love to travel. 

Jane left in December and I missed her dearly when I returned to work in 2013. The workplace without Jane is empty to me. We used to have lunch together at least once a week and meet at the Wednesday weekly craft. For Jane's farewell the Wednesday Craft group collaborated and made Jane a journal. Each of us decorated 2-4 pages of the journal and I bound it together using Coptic stitch binding technique. We gave Jane her journal on her last day. She was very touched and surprised. The journal was a piece of art that we all created for her.

In October 2012 I took an online workshop with Roxanne on Art Journalling. It came in handy when I made Jane's journal and in February this year I signed up for a one-week online workshop with Tracy on creating a journal for Valentine's day. The workshop is called  LOVE Workshop. It's going to be a good kick start for 2013 for me...

Here is Jane proudly receiving her journal during her farewell party. She showed it to her family and friends and they all admired it. Jane said it was a treasure to reminds her of us. 

I used the recycled wrapping paper from a book supplier that came with one of the Rarebooks. I kept it for a long time and it was the right thing to use for this journal. 

Here are the 4 journal pages I made for Jane. For ages I didn't have any idea what to do. I knew that I wanted to put my eco-dyed fabric in there somewhere. One day I was walking around my work seeing all the art work we have on display around the place the idea came to me to use the art work for the focal point of the pages. I still wanted to add my dyed fabric so I included that in there too.

The main features for this page is a bojagi print that hangs in the staff room. I added my dyed fabric, dried eucalyptus leaves and a heart. The writing I painting came from another painting. 

The feature for this page is the photo of a painting that used to be in Jane's office, a piece of moon eco-dyed fabric and an oak leaf from an oak tree outside Jane's office window. The angel has a heart on her dress. The Lady J writing came from another painting.

The mosaic is a feature of this page. The mosaic hangs on the staircase going up to Jane's office. I stitched a heart shape on a coffee bag and some dried leaves from the garden. The writing if and only if came from another painting. 

The painting of Australian surf beach is featured here. I used a big piece of eco-dyed fabric for the background. There is also a heart shaped leaf from a silver penny eucalyptus tree. The incy wincy spider writing came from another painting. These four pages are back to back. When I finished them I added running stitches right through the pages. I hope you can see the theme of art, love, nature and natural dye running through the pages. 

This is the original artwork I used on the journal pages. The mosaic was missing from this photo because the free collage app I got only allows me to create a collage with up to four photos at a time. 

We have a lot of art work in the library. This one was hanging on the landing leading to Jan's office. It's quite a large mosaic and not many people take much notice of it. I really enjoyed creating and put together this journal for Jane. It gave me a creative idea of making a journal for myself.

I mentioned on my last post that I'm planning to make a journal about my working life. I started by making a book that I will use to keep the journal in.

I have been saving old books with book-cloth covers. I removed the cloth cover and cut them up into strips. I then sewed them on a larger cloth that was big enough for the cover of my journal. I used Coptic stitch binding technique for the book and I used water colour papers for the signatures. The next step is to Gesso all the pages to make them water resistant  In the mean time I'm starting to collect everything and anything related to me and the university. I already have the menu for our 2012 Christmas lunch. There is an article I wrote about myself that was published a few years ago and some photos I took from social events and some brochures. I think I will fill this journal before my two and a half years is up. 

Until next time

Nat