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At the beginning of 2011 several Journey Daybook alumni completed a sketchbook that was exhibited world wide as part of the International Sketchbook Project. Back then and now, we believe that the journey daybook practice is a way of connecting both new and familiar people in ways that can promote peace.

This morning a friend sent me this link to a NYT article on . Thank you, Jean!

Traditionally, the first weekend of May has been set aside for a small boat meet here. Small, often hand-made, often wood boats come with their owners, and sometimes builders, to sail and paddle around our lovely island. People congregate at Atsena Otie, a small island off Cedar Key. This is always a beautiful sight for observers, and, for the third year, Journey Daybook alums have gathered here for an Adventure. This Adventure was beautifully hosted by Carol, a Cedar Key resident, who treated us to kayaks, golf cart rides, sodas, and a spectacularly cool site. What an extraordinary experience we had! I have assembled a few photos that tell a bit of the story for those of you who follow our activities. As always, check the “Notes and Journey Daybook Pages” page to see some of the wonderful pages that were made by the 7 participants who enjoyed this beautiful day.

Many of us are most excited when we either work with children or plan this work. One of our alums from Sarasota recently wrote me that she is currently doing background work for a summer project that she will do with kids in Maine this summer. As I understand it, she will be teaching nature journaling, focusing on familiar local birds. This is some of the prep work that she has been doing while she has been at her home on Longboat Key this winter. Wonderful and inspiring work, Cinda! The children are so fortunate to have you!

For our April Adventure the Journey Daybook alums traveled to Micanopy again. Some of us had missed the first trip in March, so Barbara agreed to hostess this return trip. I have posted my own trip report and some images on my own blog. Take a look and look for more images of other journey daybook artists on the “Notes and Journey Daybook pages” page.

A letter from Barbara -

Today - a spectacular day in these parts - drew Susan and Barbara to Micanopy to scope out the site of our next Adventure - that will happen in just a few weeks. I am very excited, especially now that I have seen the photos that Susan made this afternoon. I hope that these will also wet your interest.

Susan writes: “The plan is to meet at the gazebo which is on the right as you enter town, just past the Herlong Mansion (to the right) and next to the blue historical Micanopy sign.  There are parking spaces right next to the small park that surrounds the gazebo.  This promises to be a great adventure - everywhere you look there is something more picturesque than the last spot”

More specific details to follow . . . .

An assortment of typical on-location photos made by Anne S.

Please check out my post (on my blog) about one of our Journey Daybook board members.

Sixteen of us (the most participants ever!) had a pretty amazing two-day experience this weekend up near Live Oak at the Cerveny Conference Center. The staff now treat us like “regulars” because we have used this location for the past 4 retreat gatherings. The location is spectacular. The facilities are beautifully organized, and the food is tasty. The four of us who facilitate the retreat have developed “a system,” which makes setting up and leaving Camp Weed easier and easier.

Below, you can see Susan and Joye during our closing review. Go to the Notes and Journey Daybook Pages page to see the journey daybook pages that were produced over the weekend.

I am writing to tell you about a Journey Daybook retreat to be held at the Cerveny Conference Center, Camp Weed Episcopal Conference Grounds located ten miles east of Live Oak, FL on January 27 – 28, 2012. This retreat is open to both newcomers and to our alums; if you are a newcomer, you are receiving this invitation because you have expressed an interest in learning about the Journey Daybook process.

The Journey Daybook, Inc. is a non-profit educational cooperative that offers adventures, instruction, and service opportunities. We believe that creating illustrated journals of actual journeys can slowly reveal the meaning of a life’s journey. For the past ten years, The Journey Daybook, Inc., has conducted Retreats and Adventures to locations near and far: St. Augustine, Cedar Key, The Ocala National Forest, Suwannee River State Park, Camp Weed and Wakulla Springs in Florida; Sapelo Island and Unicoi State Park in Georgia; the John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina; and to France, Cuba and Peru.

This retreat will present the journey daybook concept and practice and is limited to 12 participants. This retreat will have a focus on drawing and collage as part of the Journey Daybook process. Each of us will have ample time to work individually and, through group activities, instruction and sharing meals, we also will experience community.

You need not be an artist to make a journey daybook; you only need an open heart. Your journey daybook will be created as you learn to apply some basics of art technique and writing. We will offer instruction and demonstrations and will allow adequate time to create pages.  At the end of the retreat, we’ll review and share our pages.  Our hope is to inspire each participant to continue keeping a journey daybook on a regular basis and to participate in ongoing Journey Daybook events: alumni adventures, exhibitions, service projects and future retreats.

We will begin promptly at 11am on Friday and close at 2 pm on Saturday. The fee for this 27-hour retreat is $125.00. The fee includes instruction and some supplies; a happy hour on Friday; three delicious meals provided by the conference center (dinner on Friday and breakfast & lunch on Saturday); and shared accommodations in attractive, comfortable motel-style rooms. If you prefer a private room, we can arrange for that; the additional cost would be $50. To register, your check for the full cost of the retreat is due by Wednesday, January 4th. If after registering you need to cancel, you can obtain a full refund by notifying me before January 11^th when I notify the camp of our exact numbers. If you cancel after January 11^th, we cannot guarantee a refund; we would need to fill your space first. (Go to www.campweed.org if you’d like to learn more about Camp Weed. Several of us have attended events at Camp Weed over the years and can attest that it is a lovely place for retreats. This will be the fourth Journey Daybook retreat we have held at Camp Weed.)

You will receive a confirmation letter after registering, which will include a list of suggested materials and more details about the retreat. If you do not have materials at hand, a “starter kit” of journey daybook art supplies will be available for you to buy at the retreat. There will also be ample materials for people to experiment with.

We hope that you will be as enthusiastic as we have become about creating a Journey Daybook. Please send me your registration, at my home address listed below, no later than Wednesday, January 4^th; please make your check payable to Journey Daybook, Inc. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Barbara Beynon

2345 NW 31st Terrace

Gainesville FL 32605

Home Phone: (352) 377-8943 Cell Phone: (352) 514-2058 Email: bbeynon1@cox.net

Twelve of us spent a glorious Friday afternoon honoring our friend, Hedy, ourselves, and marking this year’s landmarks on this second post-Thanksving celebration. Each participant brought some food to share and helped with the simple set-up and easy clean up. We enjoyed a meal of curried shrimp/ pumpkin soup, salad, home-made breads, and a decadent pumpkin cheesecake dessert topped off with chocolates. How thankful we all felt for these delicious offerings! How grateful we all are for our supportive fellowship that just keeps growing and growing!

After our meal, we worked separately for just over an hour. Most of us made journey daybook pages, but a few people improvised, working in sketchbooks. Our Donna even painted on a journey daybook-sized canvas. Please look at the “Notes and Journey Daybook Pages” page to see the finished work as it is posted.

After our work, we gathered again at our banquet table for our review. As always, we shared our feelings. Our pages and the debt of our spirits translated into paint and marks moved all twelve of us. This has been a profound year for many of us. Our lives are very full. Thank you, Dear Hedy!

I hope that these photos of Hedy’s sheep entice you to bring your journey daybooks, chairs, and minimal art supplies on Friday, 25 November at 12:30 noon to Hedy’s historic Levy County Farm. The last time the group visited Hedy, three years ago, was great fun for all of us - especially for us “city slickers.”  I was just there just a week ago, and I can promise late Florida fall colors and an exuberance of frolicking farm animals. And, we all get to enjoy Hedy’s poetry - both visual, metaphoric, and real.

So . . . please call me to hold your place - 352.543.6127 or 352.278.6127.

A wonderful October adventure at Sante Fe Zoo had 5 participants, with Patty acting as hostess. Patty reports: “It was a beautiful fall day even if it was a little cool in the shade of the zoo.  Susan , Jean, Sue R, Debby, and I all attended.  We arrived a little after 10 and drew until 12.  The animals serenaded us and it was an interesting and fun day.” The photo below shows Susan and Sue R reviewing Jean’s journey daybook page.

Thank you so much, Patty!

On Monday, October 3 our travelling exhibit moved to its second venue, the Starbucks located at 201 S E First Street in downtown Gainesville at the Union Street Station Store. Barb Armbrecht and her husband, Mark, curated this show. Starbuck’s warm, comfortable space is excellent for viewing our pages, the light is wonderful, and it is easy to to read the writing and view details because there is a lot of space around this intimate exhibit. Mark made black sticks on which he mounted the frames. These “hanging sticks” are an excellent way to mount groups of frames simply and they also integrate all of our framed pieces into unified group - such a lovely metaphor for our purpose! Mark, you are an artisitic genius and we are so very thankful for your help!

Please stop by to see this exhibit If you are able to do so.

Barb and Mark study our work and hang each piece with amazing precision and care.

Now is the time to plan for the next Adventure which will be held at the Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo in Gainesville on Saturday,  October 22, 2011 at 10:00 am, weather permitting. Patty Jett is the hostess. In case of unpleasant weather, our back up plan is to meet at the Harn Museum, also in Gainesville, at the same date and time. We do not know if there is any food available at the zoo so we recommend everyone bring their own lunch and drinks.

The following is a link to the Santa Fe Zoo website: http://www.sfcollege.edu/zoo/ We will meet outside the zoo at the picnic tables.  There is small admission fee for entrance.  For anyone older than 60, the cost is $4.00 and for other adults it is $5.00.  We can decide as a group when we want to meet back to eat and to share pages.   The zoo is opened from 9 - 2.  We have to be out of the zoo proper by 3.

Any alumnus or alumna who would like to attend needs to notify Patty by email or phone.  jett32625@yahoo.com home 352 543 5722  or cell 352 562 5672. She needs to have a head count and to know who is coming. We look forward to seeing you there!

I am updating this post by adding a photo made by dear Barbara while I gave a demonstration as I made a journey daybook page. In this picture, there are only 8 of us present. Barbara was the photographer. Leslie was off on her own somewhere.

Our beautiful weekend at Camp Weed/the Cerveny Conference Center near Live Oak FL was magical. I am posting the first scanned journey daybook page I received from one of our newest alumni, Debbie from St Petersburg. (Debbie, when I receive some photos, I will move your page along with the rest of this weekend’s work to the Notes and Journey Daybook Pages page.)

Ten of us spend two days together learning to express ourselves in imagery and words. We moved about the lush, green landscape - together and alone. We enjoyed the first fall coolness. We shared our lives. We meditated. We laughed, and we cried, often with gratitude. During our practice this weekend, we learned the language we use to talk about our work, to express what we see, and to articulate how the pages we made touch our hearts.

Be sure to check out Judy’s Blog on the Satchel’s website to see some of our pages. Better yet, stop by Satchel’s and enjoy some wonderful pizza. I also understand that coming up soon, our own Barb Armbrecht will be performing at Satchel’s. It would be such fun to gather a group together to eat and enjoy Barb’s music. Keep checking this blog. I will be sure to post the date when I receive it!

Ah . . . but we are right on time with a wonderful show of 30 journey daybook pages on the walls of this local pizza emporium at 1800 N E 23rd Avenue in Gainesville. Check out the diverse pages made by 15 of our local Journey Daybook Alumni.

Yesterday, Charlie Williams generously took time off from his day job to hang our framed pictures. Barbara and I took great pride in the results. Judy, the person in charge of exhibiting at Satchel’s, (who just returned from Peru, by the way!) has posted some information about us on her blog. Be sure to stop by Satchel’s, check out their website and blogs, enjoy some delicious pizza, and see our work in its first eclectic public forum.

Our next retreat to introduce new people to the Journey Daybook Process will be held at Camp Weed, the Cerveny Conference Center near Live Oak Florida on September 9th and 10th, 2011. Alumni (people who have attended earlier JDB retreats) are encouraged to participate. The cost for the 2-day retreat is $125, including room, board, tuition, and extra surprises.  Please be in touch with our president, Barbara Beynon <bbeynon1@cox.net>, as soon as possible for a formal invitation. She can provide lots of imformation and pertinent details.

Be sure to check our our annual Itchtucknee Float Journey Daybook Alumni Adventure on the Alumni Adventure page.

Last fall and winter 13 Journal Daybook participants made pages to be included in a traveling exhibit of journal art sponsored by the Art House Co-op in New York City. Our completed sketchbook is currently traveling to several locations around the country and it has also been digitized. This week we learned the thirteen pages of our collaborative journey daybook sketchbook project will be housed permanently in Brooklyn at the Art House Library. However, the most far-reaching place it will be housed is on the internet. You can see this unusual permanent journey daybook exhibit by clicking here.

Barbara - our president

We had our May Board Meeting last Friday at my house and there was lots of business to tackle and resolve. We heard exciting news about upcoming projects from Carol, Barbara, Peggy, and Mary Anna who was present from Durham, N C on the phone. We created a new schedule of board meetings and Alumni Adventures through most of the rest of this year. Please look for these listings on later postings. We shared personal summer vacation schedules, when most of us make journey daybook pages “on the road.” In July our work in our traveling journal will be exhibited from July 29 - 31 at Full Sail University in Winter Park FL. A selection of our journey daybook will be on view throughout the month of September at Satchel’s Pizza in Gainesville FL. Watch for more news - we are a busy group as our numbers continue to swell to well over 100 trained journey daybook keepers.

A true Adventure we had yesterday, overlooking Goose Cove in Cedar Key! We arrived mid-morning to a myriad of small boats unloading, rigging, preparing to sail, and sailing through the islands off Cedar Key. The morning was stunningly clear and cool for May. Carol, a most gracious hostess, had already set up a cloth-covered table with fruit, cookies, and cool drinks. She put together a “living room” with comfortable chairs under the shelter of a mulberry tree that she pruned, providing “windows” to view Goose Cove and the little boats in absolute comfort. She brought her golf cart, providing easy transportation around town. She made a beautiful sign identifying our place with her trademark glitter and, of course, Carol wore her diamond-studded coach’s whistle. Carol brought boats for us - 4 kayaks that we could also use if we wanted to work in a more active manner. Four of us took advantage of this opportunity and paddled to Atsena Otie, painting our pages from the water. Our friend, Joan, offered us the use of her neighbor’s dock that extends 100 feet into the cove. Two people chose to work on this dock. Ten of us worked in several different locations creating a great variety of journey daybook pages. Please check out our work as it is posted on the “Notes and Journey Daybook Pages” page. In the meantime, we hope that you will enjoy the snapshots that Barbara and I took to record this glorious day.

Thank you so much, Carol, for your continual gracious love and hospitality!

Carol and Leslie

Preparing the Kayaks

Our Review: pages in the grass

For the second year in a row, Journey Daybook alums will help celebrate the Cedar Key Small Boat Festival on Saturday, May 7^th .  We will gather between 10:30 & 11:00am at our “spot” near the curve on G Street.  I will set up a tent with a visible sign so that it will be easy for everyone to find the place, even if you weren’t with us last year.  We will have a table set up to eat lunch together and I will have some cold drinks on hand.  Then, for the adventuresome among us, I will line up as many kayaks and life vests as we need to paddle over to Asenti Odie Key to look at the small boats up close.   Those who prefer not to kayak will remain, with me, on terra firma and make our pages; we too will have many sightings of small boats and interesting folks.

Please RSVP to directly to Carol Pattillo who is hosting our May adventure at:cfpattillo@yahoo.com.  Be sure to let her know if you plan to be a kayaker.  Bring a sack lunch, sunscreen, a hat and a fold-up chair, especially if you plan to remain on Cedar Key and want to wander off to do your page.

This should be a really fun adventure and I hope to see there!

At our board meeting on March 21 we saved several dates. We will be exhibiting at Satchel’s in Gainesville for the month of September. We scheduled Alumni Adventures for April and May. (Any trained JDB Alumni member is invited to participate in these Adventures.) Both of these adventures will happen on Saturdays; therefore those of you who work or study during the week may be able to join us. Please go to the Adventure page to learn the details.

After the meeting, while we enjoyed Barbara’s luscious dinner, we shared our ideas about possible social projects in our area as well as service trips to places farther away. Watch for more information about the social thrust of our non-profit corporation.

JDB Alumni Adventure in Newberry FL

On March19th, 12 of us adventurers visited this small rural village, which lies about 12 miles west of Gainesville. Barbara B, our president, was our hostess. We met at Debbie’s House of Sugar on Main Street. This is a showroom for a baker who specializes in fancy cakes for weddings and other festive celebrations. Last spring at this time Miss Debby made a cake for Carol P., and this is how we knew about this place. These beautiful cakes are the kind that we all see made by baker/designers on TV. Making such cakes is my secret passion; therefore I was thrilled to visit this place. After time for drawing, conversation, and a short walk, we convened our gathering at The Backyard Barbeque, a popular restaurant beyond the town of Newberry. People from Cedar Key drive even drive to Newberry to eat here! We all loved the food, sampling a variety of salads, pulled pork, and barbequed specialties. Then, after our bellies were full, we scattered around town to work for 1 1/2 hours.

Our review was held in the little city park on Main Street. The images were alive, fun, and very experiential. Sue S. found a little boy to work with and her page was actually a collaboration between Sue and her friend.

Below you can see a few of the pages that we made during this lovely day.

I have posted some photographs that show our group and some of the areas where we were found in Newberry.

The Journey Daybook is now on tour! A collaborative journal that we made is part of the national tour of illustrated journals and sketchbooks that is sponsored by The Sketchbook Project of Brooklyn, New York. The first stop of the tour is Austin TX. Stops and exhibitions will continue throughout the next several months. A group of us plans to view the exhibition when the tour is in Winter Park in July. Check out the schedule at the following link - http://arthousecoop.com/projects/sketchbookproject?utm_source=Art+House+Co-op+List&utm_campaign=6fd1fe9d15-Sketchbook_tour1&utm_medium=email

Nine of us went to Camp Weed and the Episcopal Conference Center near Live Oak FL for two full days over the President’s Day weekend - February 18 and 19. We had a lovely time together meditating and working in silence, studying writing techniques, learning about painting and color, making journey daybook pages, and experimenting with different media and strategies. I have posted a photo which showsMandy’s Chapel, the structure that seems to draw one’s attention to both land and the sky as well to those aspects of Camp Weed that are harder to define. Please go to the Notes and Journey Daybook Pages page to see images that were made by some of the participants. You can see my pages on my blog.

Susan made this snapshot of our group working in our conference room. Thank you, Susan!

Alumni Adventure at Santa Fe College in Gainesville

A group of 8 of us had a very stimulating day at Santa Fe College where our hostess was Anne S. Anne, Barb, and Leslie are all non-traditional students at Santa Fe, studying art. We saw two excellent exhibits, one at the President’s Gallery where we had coffee with Jackson Sasser, the President of Santa Fe College who spends part of his time in Cedar Key. Dr. Sasser gave us Santa Fe College mugs,  and insured that we felt welcomed as we walked through the campus, spent time at a wonderful design exhibit by Jim Harrison, and worked on our pages in the library. Everyone agreed that this adventure was, indeed, quite special. Above you can see some of our pages. Look on our “Pages” page to see more images.

A friend recently sent me a link to a blog that has printed the wonderful fish journal of Adriaen Coenen, a Dutch amateur biologist whose life spanned the 15th and 16th centuries. Take a look. I think that you will be as amazed as I was - http://deepbluehome.blogspot.com/2010/12/curious-fishblog-of-adriaen-coenen.html?spref=fb