Every year I journal events, moments, thoughts, poems and what not. For 2020, I decided to make an art journal made from my fabric scraps. Each page will be a hand stitched pouch that I can put photos of my art and my writings. The pictures show the fabric pages I have created thus far.

When I’m jotting down my thoughts on paper, my mind brings me back to the story, “Possession by A.S. Byatt.” The thought of my journals being discovered a hundred or so years later…

The journals, letters and poems unearthed in the story “Possession” are by two literary sleuths. How romantic is that?! I highly recommend you read the story and watch the movie based on the book. The actors who star in the film are Gwyneth Paltrow, Aaron Eckhart, and Jeremy Northam. I’ve watched that movie a dozen times throughout the years while my imagination runs wild!

The art of journaling comes from your heart. It is what you make of the moment of thought and self expression. -Stephanie

About the book:

Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once an intellectual mystery and triumphant love story. It is the tale of a pair of young scholars researching the lives of two Victorian poets. As they uncover their letters, journals, and poems, and track their movements from London to Yorkshire—from spiritualist séances to the fairy-haunted far west of Brittany—what emerges is an extraordinary counterpoint of passions and ideas.

Quotes from Possession:

“My Solitude is my Treasure, the best thing I have. I hesitate to go out. If you opened the little gate, I would not hop away—but oh how I sing in my gold cage.”

― A.S. Byatt, Possession

“Think of this – that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other.”

― A.S. Byatt, Possession

“…words have been all my life, all my life–this need is like the Spider’s need who carries before her a huge Burden of Silk which she must spin out–the silk is her life, her home, her safety–her food and drink too–and if it is attacked or pulled down, why, what can she do but make more, spin afresh, design anew….”

― A.S. Byatt, Possession