why visual journaling?

I think a lot about why I do this work. Spending a life making art means loss of income, a bit of isolation, even some disdain from a culture that values money and success. Some family members don't understand what I do. Lots of people I cross paths with don't understand what I do. But Joseph Campbell did - his deep investigation of the meaning of things, the way we use myth and story and art to understand the Mystery -- this is why we do this work. It's not at all about decorating the walls, which is how lots of people see the work of making art. The first question 95% of the time posed to you when you mention you are an artist, is: "Do you sell your work?" Because that's how our culture validates being an artist. After ten days away from the studio (a nice break at the beach gifted to us by family who understand our money situation) I was so glad to be back in the studio, back working with my pens and paints and papers, back playing in my journal, paper up on the wall ready to take splashes of paint. . . . Flipping through the books I have been working in, I know I am onto something, no matter what the world says to be about the validity of being a Visual Journaler. Thank you to all the mystics, wanderers, artistic explorers who gave us the example that it is okay for us to dedicate our lives to the search. May we all have the courage to follow the idea that our lives can be the Yoga of being true to our calling.

"Life as an art and art as a game—as action for its own sake, without thought of gain or of loss, praise or blame -- is the key, then, to the turning of living itself into a yoga, and art into the means to such a life." --Joseph Campbell