Kiala Givehand's Journal Page Response to My Challenge!

"Passageways" by Kiala Givehand

I'm one of the guest instructors for Kiala Givehand's year-long online art journaling class "The Journey Within 2016". As a promo for the course, Kiala hosted in December a blog hop in which each teacher gave Kiala a journal page spread challenge.

I write about my challenge for Kiala in this post. One of my favorite altered book workshops I teach is Altered Books As a Way of Seeing. In it I teach how to use portals (doors, windows, stairs, paths) in altered books as a way to examine your life, your interests and passions, your dreams. Door and windows are particularly powerful because of their deep symbolic meaning over the centuries. They also speak of thresholds -- or moments of reflection -- as well as the more popular concept of future possibilities and opportunities yet to receive, achieve, or move into.

I love the image that Kiala uses in the spread above, because of its mirrored reflection. You actually have two portals with perhaps two different choices of possible movement -- one into the air (perhaps involving thought and mental concepts) and one into the water (perhaps involving emotions and feelings). Plus Kiala adds a smaller portal as a footnote to the page. Love that!

Here's Kiala's blog post on her response to my challenge page.