A Note from Carol Bonomo

Left: Paper Lunch Bag Avatar of "Roz" created by Carol Bonomo. Click on the image and view the enlargement. (Don't you love how my hair comes up into little horns? I think this is totally me!)

Carol Bonomo participated in past IFJM celebrations but decided since she was traveling for part of April she had better give it a miss this year. (I think that's a wise thing, especially since she was traveling where there would be burros!)

But before she left for her trip she created the manga lunch bag avatar for me, seen at the left. (She'd done this just in case there was going to be another project journal infiltration—that's careful planning of the type I love!)

She was making bags like this with a group of volunteers she'd trained to raise money for her buddhist temple. They finished 60 for the Hanamatsuri festival, which is weekend of April 25, and pre sold $38 worth to proud grandmas who gave them to their grandkids.

The group had so much fun they are already asking Carol what they'll be doing for their next fund raiser.

Left: Carol Bonomo's self-portrait on a lunch bag, part of her manga avatar project. 

Carol was kind enough to send this bag to me, along with the fun one of herself (see the second image in this post). I wanted to share them with you not only because I think they are great, but I think it's a fun idea for fundraising. 

Carol also shared a insight she had gained from previous participation in IFJM with me:

The point to me—which I actually "got" the first year I did IFJM - was not staying captive to a book for visual journaling.  That year I did painted postcards from my character, and it was the first time I didn't do something in a book,  I saved them in an exotic envelope I made for the occasion.  I saw the lunch bags we were making and said, "now THERE'S visual journal potential," so thank you for offering the opportunities to force us to think out of the book!

So often we think about journaling as something we can only do in a book. But not everyone's mind or method follows that pattern and structure. I know people who journal on scraps of paper. I love to make prepainted journal cards and journal on them during trips or special events. Right now I'm doing a memory-composition-drawing everyday on 5 x 7 inch cards and it has become a journal of sorts. I had hoped to do my fake journal on an iPad this year—perhaps next year?

Let your mind expand to journal in anyway that makes sense to you. And what better way to try something out than a project like IFJM or a two or three week intensive? Give it a shot. (And draw burros whenever the opportunity arises.)

Carol posts her artistic pursuits at Painted Photos. I don't see any burros up there yet, but she has promised me that some are coming. Pop over and she what's she is up to.