Journey Juju

Blog Update & What's Where

Shooting in Amsterdam

I’ve enjoyed plenty of travel this year (two five-week trips in Europe, phew!). I’m happy to store my suitcase and buckle down on my winter projects. I have a backlog (would that be a back-blog?) of posts about my recent trip that I’ll be posting soon.

Stay tuned for reports on shopping in Europe, the variety of European markets, best places to eat in Venice and the best overall food award…it’s probably not what you think!

And watch for news of my 2010 European creativity excursions. I'm developing the curriculum now!

My posts about how to make writing and creating easier are on the Original Impulse blog. Travel-related posts will be on the Journey Juju blog.

Be sure to subscribe to both blogs for tips and inspiration on how to be most creative at work, home, in the studio and on the road.

Latest from the Magic Treetop Studio

A few weeks before Labor Day (US), I feel like summer is over. I’ve allowed myself a lot of free time while integrating back to life in the US and now I’m eager to move on to the more focused energy of fall. I’ve been home five months now and while it’s been a pleasant summer, it’s time to drag myself out of my magic treetop studio and into my office. I’ve been developing several new projects that I want to share with you.

City Shrine series

 When I set out on my journey last year, I invoked a lot of juju to make sure that my travels would be smooth, safe, and tons of fun. I brought this juju upon myself with a project: make 100 travel shrines and sell them.

Remaining travel shrines. NFS

I made 100 travel shrines, sold about 80, financing my plane ticket with the sales. 20% of the proceeds were loaned to Dorothy Siaw, an entrepreneur I connected with through Kiva.org.

While traveling, I made City Shrines as a way to remember these cities as I and my Muse experienced them. These are portable talismans that represent the essence of a place as experienced on that trip. It's an artistic expression that makes travel more meaningful and fun. The first City Shrine was created in honor of Lisbon. After that came Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam and London.

I gathered ephemera from the each city – museum ticket stubs, postcards, receipts, cards, the detritus that one collects while traveling. I sought out the perfect containers for the shrine. They had to be from the city, lightweight and cheap.

I made several City Shrines leaving the city by train. The speed and rhythm of the train, my little tray table open and overflowing with supplies...such a beautiful way to honor a place.

It's more than just a fun way to gather the ephemera from a trip into a container. My City Shrines evoke memories of the people I met, the adventures I had, and the magic that made my journey truly one of great juju.

Shrines are just one of the creative travel tools I share in my e-book, The Creative Travel Toolkit. It's on sale with my other products for a creative life during the month of June 2009 to celebrate my ten-year anniversary of Original Impulse.

I’ll be sharing my City Shrines with you on Mondays as a weekly feature on the Journey Juju blogazine. I only have a handful so it will be a short series. Hopefully they will inspire you to make your own City Shrines. You don’t have to travel to do it. You could make a shrine for your own city.

Your journey is sacred. This and other Journey Blessings on sale in June!

Making Art in Europe

This trip around Europe, while it might seem like a joyfest, was actually a research and development trip for my Creative Travel Tools. I am working on expanding the tools for use beyond my tours and I needed to practice them myself.

A few of the tools I used: blogging, free writing, the alphabet game and more. But I really got into collage. I did a lot of folding and making accordion pleats in the journal.

I collected ‘schwag’: post cards, business cards, labels, transportation tickets, stickers, etc. You get it. I never had a great envelope to collect them but they managed to get into my book anyway.

I did several pages for Berlin and Amsterdam, one for Milano, and sadly, none for Cologne, where we made a one-night stopover to visit Denise’s friend Frank. You’ve seen the Paris pages.

My Moleskine sketchbook is bulging from all the collage, and the stitching was really strained in the middle. I still have about ten pages to fill, and I will use them to learn Portuguese and capture my time in Portugal.

My traveling companion Denise and I decided to travel by train and use the time en route to make art. It was the perfect interlude for creating. Using the little tray tables, our glue sticks and watercolor pencils, we spent hours lulled by the rhythm of the train and the tunes on our iPods. Most of the trips were about four hours long, the perfect amount of time to whip out the supplies and capture the inspiration.

Denise’s Transformation

Denise is what’s known as a blocked artist. She’s a very talented painter and portrait artist, and before we came on our trip, she showed me her journal from when she was a teen runaway. It was stunning: filled with beautiful drawings of people and places, collage, design, color and style. I was blown away and encouraged her to bring her art supplies. We agreed that this would be an art tour for us. We’d wend our way through Europe filling our journals.

Denise turned out to be the perfect guinea pig for my Creative Travel Tools. She confessed to me that when she was packing her art supplies she thought “Oh, why bring these, I won’t use them. I haven’t done art in fifteen years and taking these will just be….”

This was Denise’s first trip to Europe and it completely blew the lid off of her head. That’s the only way to describe it – when someone has her head completely taken off and filled with new stimulus. You’ve had this feeling at some point, right? It can be overwhelming, especially with the non-stop pace we had – four countries in 19 days. Denise kept saying, “I can’t take it, I can’t take anymore!” She’s already pretty hyper and trying to calm her down was easy with my secret weapon:

The Creative Travel Tools saved Denise’s creativity and made her trip much, more than a romp around the Continent.

We’d be waiting for something and Denise would shout, “I gotta write this down! I gotta blog!” I encouraged her to whip out her notebook and do it there. She’d get it out, scribble some words or capture a quick sketch. Afterwards I’d ask if she felt better (calmer, more grounded) and she always did.

Denise’s journal is amazing and inspiring. I learned some new techniques from her and she let me use her watercolor pencils (now I want a set!).

Denise also got completely inspired by the fashion in Europe and scored some great finds: a hot dress in Berlin, two pair of awesome shoes in Berlin, a pair of boots, a belt and a leather jacket in Amsterdam. And a scarf, too, completing her new European look.

I have a secret desire to see Denise become a fashion designer instead of a graphic designer but I musn’t implant my dreams on someone else’s path!

But the best thing is that now Denise knows that she is no longer a blocked artist and has returned to Denver to use the inspiration in her life and art.

 City Shrines

My friend Lena helped me brainstorm the idea for my City Shrines before I left. I went to the flea market in each city (well, Paris, and Berlin) and got a container for a City Shrine. In Paris I got a cool old stainless steel box that we think was used for dental pics. In Berlin I found a giant matchbox that even had matches packs from the sixties inside. I also got a small leather photograph folder in Berlin, so Berlin got two shrines.

In Amsterdam I found a cool tin with typical Dutch images on it at a thrift store. For Milan, I’m using a small pastilles box. You already saw the Lisbon City Shrine.

On the train, I’d get out my schwag, my journal and the soon-to-be Shrine box. Without thinking, I’d fold, pleat, tear and glue. I loved the process of intuitively placing things. When I look at the journal, I feel the critical eye wanting it to be different, but the City Shrines I just love. I want to make more.

I highly recommend this way of making art – no thinking, just do it. Just go.


More Art to Come

My creative plan for the summer is to switch to watercolor and fill my Moleskine watercolor notebook with pen and ink and watercolor paintings. The beach really inspired me with all the umbrellas and people lounging around. I need to practice drawing the human form – what better place than the beach?

While I love the collage, I really crave color and want to work with color more. So, on to painting!

I also really enjoyed making photos on this trip and think I am developing a good eye. I will continue to make photos and play with that art form.

Making Art in Lisbon

I’d written earlier that I was having a hard time getting started making art on my trip. I think that was normal – shifting out of my usual working mode from home and into creative traveler took a little time. But once I settled in, I had a great time.

I haven’t used all the Creative Travel Tools yet, but here are some that I did use: sensual focusing, collage, alphabet, shrine making, haiku, drawing and listing.

When I made the Travel Shrines, I had the idea to make shrines in each city that I go to as an homage to that city. Actually, I think it was Lena’s idea. In any case, I loved it, and I thoroughly enjoyed making my Lisboa shrine.

It started with the need for a box. I went to the Fiera da Ladra (flea market) twice – the first day I arrived and on one of my last days. On the second trip, I was hunting for a box for the shrine. I imagined a small, thin cigarette box. Something light and portable, with character.

I prowled the market, which consisted largely of blankets spread on the ground and topped with various junk/treasure items you’re likely to find in any market. Cell phones, pens, tiles, gadgets, gewgaws, you name it, it was there.

I looked at wooden boxes, at tins, at ceramic boxes. It had to be small enough to send home, and it had to be an immediate yes. It took about an hour before I found the square cigarette tin, which I bought for three euros. I also bought a miniature hand-painted tile at the market.

For the materials I had ticket stubs, maps and images from brochures. I’d also picked up a postcard with Portuguese writing on it. I didn’t know what it said, but I wanted to have the language represented in the shrine.

On a walk one day, the idea came to me to fold these objects in some way, similar to an accordion journal from Moleskine.

A few days before I left Lisbon, I gathered my materials together along with some extra strong glue I had bought. Cutting, folding, gluing, my shrine came together in a delightful way. On the inside is a tile depicting a couple on a journey. I added a map from Sintra, a depiction of The Temptation of St. Anthony by Bosch (a painting I had seen at the museum) and the tiny tile. But the juju was waiting for me.

When I picked up the postcard to cut out some words, I saw that it was basically a list poem. The card advertised a magazine called Happy Woman or something like that. It goes something like this… I like showers, I like going topless, I like handwritten letters, I like João. Wait. I like João? That was weird. I know it’s the most common name here, but still. It was like the card was written for me. I attached other items to the card, including some journey blessing and the metro cards that say Viva Viagem, which I translate as “Live for the Journey.”

I love this first shrine and look forward to making ones for Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin and Florence.

If you were making a shrine for a special place, what place would that be and what would you use to represent how special it is for you?

Here are images of my journal from my time in Portugal.

Searching for Bright Pennies

Since money Juju is such a part of travel, I wanted to include coins in the Shrines. I had a collection of change that I’d brought back from previous trips to Europe. I quickly used those up and began keeping my eye out for shiny pennies to include. I wanted change when I bought something, but sometimes kind shop people rounded up so as to not give me pennies.

I went to the bank and asked for rolls of shiny pennies. Unfortunately, in every roll are some blackened pennies who have seen their fair share of miles and tills. I tried soaking them in soap and bleach to make them clean. That backfired. They came out all blotchy. I’m sorry to say that my inner artist drew the line with polishing every coin. So I leave that to you. When you polish your penny, think of all the great trips you will have. Charge your Shrine with your own unique flavor of good Journey Juju. Feel free to add a coin that’s special to you. 

Contributing to Kiva.org

For a long time I’ve been looking for a cause to which I could contribute. I feel very fortunate and lucky to have been born where and when I was and to have the bounty that I have received. I’ve been yearning to give back for a long time.

It wasn’t until I saw Kiva.org that my heart leaped with awe at what this organization does. Ever since I heard about microfinancing, where people lend small amounts of money to entrepreneurs around the world, I’ve wanted to contribute. The people who participate in Kiva seek small loans to get service or retail businesses up and running. Many of them are women, and many of them gather together in collectives to make it easier to run successful businesses.

For each Shrine sale, I will take twenty percent of the proceeds and add it to the Original Impulse lending fund. Once all the Shrines are sold, I will choose someone on the Kiva.org web site to lend the money to. When they repay me, I’ll lend it to someone else. And on and on.

In that way, people who buy a Shrine are contributing not just to my journey, but to others who seek to be self-employed and self-sustaining.

You can lend money on your own, too. Just visit the Kiva web site and look for someone you’d like to lend a hand to.

Making Travel Shrines

I consider the Travel Shrines to be my first foray into making art to sell. I had so much fun with them! All of the details were like a puzzle to fit together. From choosing the right matchboxes (the American ones were sturdier than the ones made in China) to finding the images for the covers to tracking down St. Christopher medals and Guatemalan worry dolls, I followed my instinct to make the Shrines.

That's a shot of my Shrine. I carry it with me everywhere.

Again and again I had to set aside my critical mind and just follow my instinct. I’d pick images that pleased me and lay them on the boxes. If they jived, I glued them on without further thought. Collaging the outside, spraying and sprinkling the inside trays, gathering the talismans for inside and filling each Shrine was a labor of love.

People ask my how much time it took to make them. I have no idea. I started before Thanksgiving and finished on February 24th. Three months of evenings and Sunday afternoons on the couch. I’ve always wanted a studio in my home and I finally had one. My studio consists of a small table with a tray that I pull onto my lap while I sit on the couch. I listened to Modest Mouse and Radiohead a lot while making these.

I’m happy when I see them lined up in the boxes I keep them in (a Belgian chocolate box and the lid for a map box). I’ll be both happy and sad to send them out into the world. I hope the people who buy them join The Shrine Movement and send photos and stories of the Shrines and their travels. It will be fun to see how these Shrines  bring good Journey Juju to people’s lives and what magic they will bring.

Psst...Extra Spark Juju!

Fifteen of the Shrines contain an extra spark of magic. I added the spark randomly, so I don't know who will get them. Those Shriners who get the extra spark will get a special Journey Juju prize! Just write me when you find the extra spark in your Shrine.