Just Because

Last weekend, I attended a workshop at the Maier Museum of Art located on Randolph College’s beautiful campus in Lynchburg’s Rivermont Historic District.

The workshop, which was a prelude to this week’s Virginia Festival of the Book, included three components:

1. A quick tour of the museum’s 112th Annual Exhibition, which featured book art from artists nationwide

2. An ekphrastic writing exercise led by the director of Randolph’s MFA in Creative Writing program

3. A bookmaking activity that incorporated our writings from the exercise into pocket-size books

A group of about a dozen gathered around folding tables in the middle of the exhibition hall at the art museum, crafting supplies laid on the tables before us. People drove in from as far as Charlottesville and Danville to attend the event, and we spent some time getting to know each other before digging into the activities—expectedly, many of the attendees were writers. 

To kick off the event, one of the workshop instructors, artist and book artist Lyall Harris, took us on a tour of the annual exhibition. Prior to the tour, I had a vague idea of what book art was, and the exhibit displayed a variety of pieces made from books, materials fashioned to look like books, and elements of books. Each piece used text and form to convey a message, and I appreciated the variety of ideas displayed in the room. 

After the tour, we returned to the tables and learned three ways to transform a sheet of paper into a booklet with some simple folds and cuts. From there, we dug into the ekphrastic writing exercise. Ekphrastic writing is simply describing artwork with words. The workshop leader gave us several prompts to think about and then had us peruse the museum for works that inspired us. We had to choose three elements from the artwork in the museum to incorporate into our book art. 

From there, we worked on writing down our ideas based on the writing prompt and the three elements we selected while exploring the museum. Then the real fun began. 

Using fancy paper, markers, stamps, punches, scrapbook paper, and more, we created our own book art. The exercise reminded me of high school art class or crafting at the kitchen table with Mom as a child. I haven’t sat down and just experimented without an end product in mind in years. 

I spend a lot of time writing and knitting—those are my two favorite creative outlets. But I always go into projects with an end goal in mind. A blog post. A novel. A cabled headband. A neckerchief. I’ve never sat down with a pair of knitting needles and some yarn and just started knitting. I’ve always had a pattern in hand and a finished product in mind. 

At the workshop, I had no idea what the finished product would be. It felt reckless (and maybe a bit pointless, if I’m being honest) to spend two hours stamping and cutting and gluing just for the sake of stamping, cutting, and gluing. 

I like rules and structure. Routines. To-do lists. Instruction manuals. Maps. When I’m road-tripping to visit my parents—a five hour drive I’ve taken hundreds of times—I still use a GPS because I like to track my progress and know when I’ll arrive. I’ve cooked dinner without a recipe maybe once or twice in my entire adult life (to disastrous results). 

I’ve come to realize there’s nothing wrong with liking routines and structures, but there is a problem with holding a death grip on certainty. If things don’t go as planned, my heart rate skyrockets, and I get all sweaty and irritable. I can’t think straight and have a very hard time salvaging what’s left of my day. This is a problem. 

So I’ve decided I need to do more things just for the sake of doing them. For the enjoyment of it. 

When I was a kid, my family used to take drives in my dad’s 1970 Mustang—just for the enjoyment of it. We’d squeeze into the shiny blue convertible and ride around town, the wind whipping through our hair and the sun warming our faces. If it was chilly outside, Mom would tuck me and my brother into the backseat with fleece blankets and knit beanies. We didn’t care if it burned up gas or put a few miles on the car. We didn’t care if our only destination was returning to our driveway.

When was the last time you did something just for the enjoyment of it? Without tracking your outcomes? Without having a finished product in mind?

I don’t have a convertible, but I can open the sunroof and the windows of my sensible SUV and enjoy a drive through the country, just to see the spring colors. I can make book art and play with colors and textures and words just for the fun of it. I can and I should. I will.