Puzzling

Putting All the Pieces of Life Onto the Page

Life is full, and beautifully fractured. This course will invite us to gather and sort all the varied bits and pieces life brings our way, and create a journal that gives them a place to play on the page. From coffee shop receipts to envelope liners, personal doodles to watercolor portraits, and fabric scraps to found thread, nothing is overlooked as we glean from our lives to build our books. Even though we may often feel scattered by our many interests and roles, this course will encourage us to see the puzzle in what we do and love, each piece connecting to another, making the marvelous mess that is life make more sense.

Puzzling will take us from where to look and gather the bits and pieces of life, to sorting them, asking questions about how they might come together, to the actual piecing of the puzzle on the page. We will dive into creating journals that invite structure to what we collect without forfeiting the glorious gumption that is getting messy and finding freedom in what we make.

Brandi will be using an 8×8 square watercolor journal for this project, but what we practice and build can be done in any size book or binding, which we will explore together. At the end of these lessons we will find ourselves not only with a journal of the many pieces of life we’ve been living, but also new ways to pay attention to the world, then gather, sort, and use all those seemingly ordinary treasures that keep tumbling into our lives, and help tell our stories.