Craftsy journal project, and a mental picture of C.S. Lewis

The Journal
Thanks to inspiration from scrappy artist extraordinaire, Virginia, I altered a little antique primer (which belonged to someone in my family, though I can't remember whom), into this scrappy journal, ready for writing.


Pages in the journal are a combination of the original primer pates (complete with charming illustrations),


and two other books (to stabilize the journal, as the primer pages are fairly fragile).


I'll either paint over the text on some of the pages (and then write over the paint), or write on scrappy paper and paste it in -- haven't worked out all the details of that yet. But I've wanted to create one of these little altered books for some time now, and am happy to see the project finally done.

A Mental Picture of C.S. Lewis

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm reading a book by a man (Vanauken) who was a friend of C.S. Lewis. At one point in the book, Vanauken describes the man Lewis. It's a first-hand account of a real man -- heretofore seemingly unreal in my mind (an ethereal presence whose name appeared as author on profoundly written publications -- but not a real, living, breathing man). I appreciated so much the human element portrayed in Vanauken's description -- it made Lewis present in my mind. Thought you might enjoy it too.

"... I got a card from [Lewis] inviting me to dine with him at Magdalen College. I had never so much as seen a photograph of him, and in reading his books and letters I had vaguely pictured him as slender, perhaps somewhat emaciated, and slightly stooped with a lean, near-sighted face. What I met, when I turned up at his rooms, was John Bull himself. Portly, jolly, a wonderful grin, a big voice, a quizzical gaze -- and no nonsense. He was as simple and unaffected as a man could be, yet never was there a man who could so swiftly cut through anything that even approached fuzzy thinking. Withal, the most friendly, the most genial of companions. ... I therefore saw and heard, both at table and in the semi-circle by the fire in the common room as the port went round, the Lewis who, in brilliance, in wit, and in incisiveness, could hold his own with any man that ever lived."