Today’s Inspired Action: Let’s explore the Healing that can take place with Art Journaling.
Here’s one Shero, Artist Valerie Sjodin of Hillsboro, Oregon who has been an inspiration to many who are finding healing through Art. She recently invited Oregonian editor Taylor Smith through a tour of her home. Smith said it was like stepping into a kindergarten classroom with “burts of color spout everywhere; a giant rainbow colored pear, a tree decorated with iridescent glass balls, canvases covered in shades of sea-foam green and golden yellow.”
Valerie earned a degree in art from Marylhurst University + began working as an artist. But she was interrupted with a “Dark Night Of Soul” moment through a terrible shoulder injury | surgery |long recovery which left her face to face with her negativity and self-pity. Instead of letting these nasty energies linger within her, she decided to doodle and express the junk through journaling. Afterwards, she would cover the pessimism with white paint and design positive affirmations over it.
Valerie says: “As I looked at my journal and it’s transformation, I realized it was improving my positive self talk. I was healing from it. Making the journal began changing how I see myself, life and others.When I was done with a journal, I could leave those hurts in the book.”
Many journals have followed Valerie’s first creation, and Valerie no longer carries “shoulders” the burden of negative self-talk within her conscious.
Valerie encourages people to explore Creative Art Journaling. She says that her journals are about freedom; surrendering to her creativity. Creative Art Journaling is “about the person, not the book… it’s never been about making a masterpiece; it’s an expression of someone’s life. When we let ourselves play, we heal.”
Valerie leads art journaling workshops at her home studio in Hillsboro.
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