The Curse of the Purse

Project: The Curse of the Purse
This interactive page contains a pouch constructed from fabric, chain and button, which holds a list of the contents of the artist's purse. The clean, yet stimulating design of the pages has much appeal.

Artist: Sherry Pollack


Rather than rely on the vast and tempting array of stickers and other accoutrements that scrapbookers use, we focus on playing with and manipulating art materials. Granted, scrapbookers have some cool stuff, but our use of such materials is selective and minimal. My longest running group admits to having a sickness: we never throw anything away! Oh! I can use that on a page. Or, I can make a stamp/stencil/template/texture, etc. out of that! If we didn’t laugh about it, we would probably cry.

What I bring to the table is a lifetime of familiarity with art materials and processes, an active mind and creative thinking, a love of words, and a sense of fun. This is what I encourage and teach. It’s all about tapping creativity. I have been awarded the title of Muse, and I playfully sign my communiqués: Musingly yours,

Workshops at Ghost Ranch

Page decoration: painted workshop nametag extended into full painted page, with facing page repeating the colors in an abstract design, waiting to be written upon.

Materials and techniques: on left, watercolor with saran wrap texturing; on right, painted watercolors with salt sprinkled into sky to represent the Milky Way (sorry it's not clearer), silver metallic pen

Artist: Carol Zika, 2007

Ghost Ranch, www.ghostranch.org, is an education and retreat center with two locations: Santa Fe and Abiquiu, NM. Northwest of Santa Fe in the high mountain desert is Abiquiu and Georgia O’Keeffe country. Of dinosaur fame, too. It is there that I will be presenting two weeks of Artful Journaling workshops. I can only describe the setting as a sacred space, and visitors return year after year to see old friends, make new ones, and replenish their spirits. Workshop offerings are varied and stimulating to mind and soul. This is a family-friendly place, with supervised programming for youth during adult class times. And yes, one can see the silvery full moon, the Milky Way, and stars upon stars in the night sky.

Artful Journaling I - July 27 - Aug 2, 2009
This first week is a part of the Creative Arts offering, which pulls together a gifted faculty from across the country, and includes writing, painting, music and drama. Imagine five mornings, surrounded by crimson and yellow rock mesas, writing from the heart and playing with art materials! After this first week, participants are invited to stay around for the encore session.

Artful Journaling II - Aug 3 - Aug 9, 2009
The second week can be taken separately, and will be co-lead with poet Anita Skeen, who is an inspiring writing teacher with many longtime devotees. As life-long friends, we have lots of fun with our collaboration, and the class members are the beneficiaries. I could wax poetic about Anita as a teacher, but she’s the poet, so I won’t go there. So, imagine five mornings, etc., etc., with the added plus of a skilled writing muse.