Art Journal

It always amazes me what you can find on the internet. One thing leads to another and pretty soon you aren’t surfing in Kansas any more but are snooping around someone’s collection of Victorian fire screens and hair receivers. And it proves the point that no matter what my wrinkled grey matter can come up with, someone, somewhere has thought of it before, and, in this age, probably has a blog or a web site on the subject. The spectrum of subjects that people collect, study, obsess and blog about is dazzling. If the mind of man can conceive it, some one has blogged it. That can be a good thing, but it also can be not-so-good. You find the sublime, the spiritual, the most noble aspects of God’s finest creation on one hand, and on the other just the opposite. Plenty of material to prove the axiom that, “People will do anything for money”.

One aspect that impresses me is not only does the subject exist in a blog, but that the delivery is done so very well in many cases. People put hours and hours into their special interest blogs with lots of photographs, text, links, graphics etc. The level of expertise is astounding (At least it is to me, the pre-computer generation).

The subject matter is endless. Pencil collecting. Fountain Pens. Old tools. Hairbrushes. Militaria. Genealogy. Antique bicycles. I found a web site about Intentionally Hidden Old Clothing. Some of the most confounding pages are the professional/technical/academic sites that communicate something very specific and meaningful only to their own kind. Kinda like you gotta speekee the language before it makes any sense.

There is a lot of interest in notebooks, journals, art journals and the like. Expensive notebooks seem to be necessary for journaling, and that art-journaling thing: More than a sketch-book; a graphic journal of one’s life; A diary for the eyes. All sorts of media are used for collage, drawing, calligraphy, painting all in a book form. A private world of art! Some are beautiful, all are interesting. People are not shy about sharing them either. Next time you want something interesting to look at, find some art journals on the web.