I pulled out an old package of journal scribblings from 1994.  Written when my kids were young, I was married and three years in to an art career.  Let’s take a look shall we?

Preface:

So here I sit about to embark on the great adventure: the writing of a book.  My book.  But where to begin?  Here, I suppose.  Just the intimate privacy of me, my hand, the pen and the paper.  There is no audience.  There are no readers- except my critical eye who has promised to critique only that which is not full-out expression.  To critique timidity, a superficial and parasitical “emotion” that loves to repress.

Who cares what all this bullshit is?  The question is, “Will it get expressed?”  I challenge myself to a duel, in hopes that the self-confident, egomaniacal creator wins over the tired little pleaser, who likes to make no waves.

What’s to become of all this spewing?  This writing of words?  This non-stop verbal vomit, this desperate plea for recognition and understanding?  And does the result matter?  I leave these questions to simmer in the recesses and hallways of my mind.  I know this won’t be pretty.  But it will be honest, and honesty is always beautiful.

– Katarina Thorsen, August 5, 1994

Vancouver BC Canada

Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. there is no mystery about the origin of things. – Henry Miller