Inside An Artist’s Cruising Journal

By Dorothy Simpson Krause

On Riveria, Marina and Insignia, I’ve traveled to the far corners of the globe as I inspire and help guests in Artist Loft to create meaningful work – I’ve sailed everywhere from Denmark, Latvia and Norway to Australia, New Zealand, Tonga and French Polynesia to Oman, Egypt and Israel to Aruba, Curacao and Grenada. What journeys I’ve had.

I’ve been an artist-in-residence on Oceania Cruises since 2012, and for these past several years I have also been keeping an on-going journal that chronicles and captures the places I visit during the voyage. From the beginning, I hoped that the journal wouldn’t be completed on a single cruise but would span a number of voyages.

For me, this journal is the perfect way to pay homage to the places I’ve been because it allows me freedom in what I include and the elements or details that are meaningful and memorable to me. I mostly collage the journal pages with interesting images or ephemera that I find on the voyages. The inside front cover incorporates an image of Riviera which was cut from an Oceania Cruises brochure. Other pages also use Oceania Cruises images combined or contrasted with found objects and images from other sources. They’re designed to capture the spirit of the place without being location specific. To provide continuity, the pages have been given the effect of age with pigment and watercolor using stencils and rubber stamps in brown and sepia.

In order to be able to add to the journal, instead of working in a bound book I folded sheets of cream-colored paper into 5.5” x 6.5”-sized pages and placed them into a rectangular piece of pigskin cut from an outdated jacket. Designed to wrap around the pages with considerable overlap, the leather allows the journal to expand over time. It was painted with layers of acrylic paint and rubbed with gold metallic pigment to give it a patina. A Riviera 2012 commemorative pin was affixed to the wrapped cover to hold an elastic band in place and provide both a closure and a focal point.

When my journal, entitled “Oceania” is complete, I’ll sew the loose pages into the spine of the cover to hold it all together. Currently I’ve completed 67 pages, and I look forward to adding many more to come as I meet more of you on board!

About Artist-in-Residence Dorothy Simpson Krause Dorothy Simpson Krause is a painter, collage artist and printmaker who incorporates digital mixed media into her art. Her work is exhibited regularly in galleries and is in the collections of more than two dozen museums. Dot is a Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts College of Art where she taught for 35 years, and has also been an Artist-in-Residence at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, as well as at many other celebrated institutions. She is the author of Book + Art: Handcrafting Artists’ Books, and co-author of Digital Art Studio: Techniques for Combining Inkjet Printing with Traditional Art Materials. You can see her work at www.DotKrause.com and www.facebook.com/DotKrause.