Making (micro) portable memory box art

So like, maybe a fun way to own (y)our memories

Probably everyone reading this has had at least one moment in their life where they wanted to freeze time and stay there forever.

Like if you could miniaturise the scene, the moment, and shrink it, and put it in a bottle that you can open whenever you need to, to smell the rare and precious air of that moment, and somehow relive it again.

This email is dedicated to this bittersweet wish. Except, like, as I wrote last week, what if we just had fun with it.

And so, my dear friends and erstwhile companions, we come to this:

What the hell is this, I hear you wondering.

This is portable art. Art that grows along with you as you travel. Small art. Talismanic art. Amulets. Memory boxes.

I love how this is slap bang at the junction between witchy stuff like amulets and talismans, and bookbinding… and assemblage art...AND the idea of memories, and those who keep them, and what gets kept.

Also…I feel, especially as life keeps on going and I’m still here in it, I’m heavier and heavier with all the stories inside me. All the people I’ve known, all the seasons of my life. The stories of the ones who have passed on. I feel like all of this is in me, and I’m getting fuller and fuller.

I hope that through making these memories external…maybe I can become just a little bit lighter.

My cousin moved to New Zealand, far, far away, and before she left I gave her this ‘emergency cat supply’, as she was leaving her cat behind in Ireland with a friend. So that no matter how far away from Ireland she was, she could always have a little place to go to in a tin.

I was wondering if you’d like to externalise some memories too, and to tell the stories of your life in micro art form…and if so…here’s a poll:

Owning your memories, but, like, totally in a fun way

These little portable artworks can be fun presents for friends (yes, everyone knows now what they’ll be getting for Christmas from me). And they can be more, I guess, because let’s face it, memories and feelings can be deep and heavy. Sometimes they’re like oceans you need to cross and in which you don’t know how to swim.

I see this as a way to clear any gunky obstacles away and just have fun and be in our bodies and alive and creating and burning, deeply, with the fire of experience.

And finally

Due to feedback (thanks!), paid subscribers to this newsletter will now also receive: Monthly art-making materials: collage pages, elements for art journaling, zines. Downloadable, high-quality image files for printing & using in your own work as you feel the need & joy to do so.

If you love this newsletter, get value out of it, and believe in paying people for their work, consider a paid subscription. Here’s the special discount link for annual subscriptions for you to use should you see fit, and until next time, and, again, thanks for sticking with me.

Jessica