Louises page in Momento Mori

Momento Mori has certainly been challenging us all

 as it makes it was around our beautiful country.

 I have been thinking about this one for quite a while.  

We had a huge storm sweep in recently 

whilst I was contemplating the fact we are all very mortal

 and as I watched it gather power and overcome all the challenges

 in its path at such a ferocious speed

 I started to think how short a time all life has,

 be it that raging storm, ourselves or the trees around us.

I took those themes 

and was also inspired by the colour pallet

 of that sunset storm for my pages. 

First of all I did a black stencilled background as I was so inspired by Roz's gorgeous background. I wanted mine to look like trees in a wild storm with gathering darkness. 

Then I created all the elements I wanted to use in my spread, the clock face, the wings and an hourglass and I recycled some gold packaging I have been holding onto for ever to make my letters and played around with placement for a couple of days. 

Then I came across this great quote by Ansel Adams-

Öur time is so short

And the future so terrifyingly long.

Through the art of brush, pen and lens...

We possess a swift and sure means

of touching the conscience

and clearing the vision. 

So I had to add that.

I decided to make "Tempus Fugit" time flies,

the flying clock as an openable page in itself,

that reveals the quote and the watching hour glass.

I have also done a walk though this journal

 and published it at River Girl Art  if you would like a peek.

Working in this journal also bought to memory another quote- 

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do 

with your one wild and precious life?” 

― Mary Oliver

My spread for Memento Mori

I had originally intended to use some photos of a cemetery in a bushland setting in Victoria. I took these photos about 6 years ago and I coudn't find them on my old hard drive. So I had to come up with something different~!
I found the skull image online and coloured it with prismacolour pencils.Tha background id stenciled and stamped. The texture paste is homemade with black gesso,bi-carb,cornflour and some gold glitter. The stamping is done with versafine Ink.

The second page had already been done with a layer of gesso so I used some homemade spray ink and some dylusions ink and some fabric spray ink for colour to tie in with the previous page. Once again I added some stamping and texturising with an old make up sponge. The quote I printed out from the internet.

The girl from the book was just visible so I used  an 'ALL' pencil to make her slightly more prominent. For those who don't know this journal is a re-purposed picture book about Hiroshima. I didn't want to obliterate the girl so she is now part of this spread.

Jan completes Momento Mori

Well, this was a bit of a challenge as everyone has found when confronting this theme! It is very good to make us think outside our comfortable box....Once again a great altered journal. The cover is awesome.
I went with "Choose Life", it felt pertinent to my life. I also loved the book we were altering as the 1000 paper cranes has special significance for us. When Andrew was in ICU his friends stayed up for days making 1000 paper cranes and brought them to the hospital, he has it hanging in his room now. They are beautiful and a great reminder - momento mori - but choose life.
Here are my pages.

Lots of layers

This is mostly the page that was in the book it was too beautiful to cover up completely.

My daughter made this crane for me.

I really enjoyed working in this journal.

Momento Mori by Sharon

Gosh I learnt a lot from this journal.  Google ran hot and my courage was a lot like a steam train.  It took a long time to heat up but finally got over the hill and came down running.

It turns out that I was somewhat afraid to look death - particularly mine, in the face.  I didn't want to create a day of the dead look - that's not me and neither did I want to be in tears every time I worked on it.
I started out thinking that in someone else's comment they said to try to think of it as something we pass on.  The light bulb moment came as I started to think about the three generations of hand written recipe books that I have but somehow that seemed a bit glib.  So I went back to google.  I ended up finding an arm of momento mori called veritas art.

There is a great article in 'Art of manliness."  It talks about veritas art (certainty of death) and lists some of the common symbols such as bubble (I already use them), smoke (too hard), hourglass, watches (already did a painting of fob watches) rotting fruit and flowers, sheet music, books....  Finally I had something that I could handle.

So off I went and ended up using the image of a rose that had dropped all its petals, some random sheet music that I had lost most of the pages to and an old wood cut that I did many eons ago of myself.  I ended up with so many ideas that I may have gone over board.

So in the end - thanks.  I love a challenge and I think I rose to it in the end.

"Veritas - truth

• the fleeting beauty of a bubble

• the haunting melody of a piano heard in the middle of the night

• the flickering light of a candle

• the temporary perfection of a rose

• the time together of three generations

These are some of the precious moments I celebrate."

'Memento Mori' - Deb's page

'Memento Mori'- Latin for 'remember you will die'. Remember you will die- we are mortal beings interacting with an eternal cycle of life. While there is life there must be death, and both are ever-present. My problems are all existential- if ever I'm wondering directly about anything that isn't existential, I'm wondering about how it relates to something that is. So I guess it's only natural that my journal theme be something so... epic. It has occurred to me that we, as people, are just about never exposed to the reality of our own death like other living things. This is a result of life being less about survival as about pleasure, because our basic needs are being taken care of.