Olwen Wilson is a healer & creative facilitator who helps people who are drawn to visual journaling and making visual art but they don’t feel like they have enough talent or time. She helps them figure out how to make it a part of a regular practice in a way that helps them clear their mind (even for a moment), get better at making decisions and take action.
Having taught self-care practices for over a decade, Olwen’s practiced everything from yoga to energy healing, drumming to meditation. But the one she keeps coming back to the most is visual journaling. It helped her learn to trust herself again after suddenly getting diagnosed with a chronic illness so that she could stop wasting time waiting and worrying about what other people think and go after what’s important in life.
I met Olwen at a book club almost three years ago and we’ve stayed in touch since then. I often jokingly call myself “art adjacent” because I’m so involved in the arts, but don’t consider myself an artist. Anything I do make is personal and not meant for others to see. I wanted to know more about visual journaling and talk about the idea of creating something that’s just for you.
First of all, for the people who aren’t initiated, what is visual journaling?
I always describe visual journaling, as a creative way to express and record your thoughts, feelings, wisdom, and reactions using words and imagery. It allows you to take the time to listen and observe your inner and outer worlds without judgment, only noticing as you're creating. It's a really simple but powerful practice. What I like to focus on is the process. We're not focusing on trying to make something pretty or perfect. I'm more curious and I will always encourage my participants to take stock or notice what's going on within themselves. What's going on in their body? When they're responding to a prompt, or just creating from some sort of inspiration that they have, what feelings might come up, what memory? I might give someone a prompt, something that they can respond to as a jumping off point. And where they end up, might surprise them. If I say what do you see at your window, and then they start talking about what they saw in their window when they were six years old, or something like that, it can be an interesting journey. I'm always saying go to this practice with curiosity and wonder, be open to just explore. It's amazing what you will remember, or what solutions will pop up that you never thought of. That's what I love, when people are surprised by what comes out of them.
I always call visual journaling making a fun mess. There are no rules, you can't make a mistake with visual journaling. Some people will say visual journaling is always something specific. For me, if you doodle in the margin of a book, it's visual, you see it, you can count that as visual journaling. A lot of people can get caught up in it having to look or feel a certain way and that will stop them right there. Pretty and perfect are big bullies.
How did you get into visual journaling?
I've always been interested in visual art, a lot of arts, and I kind of dabbled in art journaling for a few years, but that word art in front of journaling held a lot of weight. Because art is subjective, but I always took it in that it has to be perfect and it has to be pretty, whereas visual journaling is more open. Art journal kind of had a certain reputation that I felt like I needed to live up to, and my art wasn't good enough for it.
In 2018 I went on a retreat. A friend of mine was doing a visual journaling workshop in Iceland, and I was going to teach yoga. Part of the agenda for each day was visual journaling each morning for three hours and it felt like torture. When she first told me, I was like, “What am I going to do for three hours? This is ridiculous”. I did it the first day, and the next day when it came to the three-hour cutoff, I was like, “What do you mean we're done? I want to do more.” I love Iceland so much. We’d go on adventures and I got to see so many waterfalls. When I got home, I wanted to dive back in to visual journaling. I couldn’t stop. It was addictive because it was just so fun. I had some serious issues with one of the participants on that retreat and journaling was a way for me to process what I was feeling and thinking and gave me that space, so I could really examine what was going on, and then have a discussion with other people.
I work with a lot of creatives and their creative process has changed after they have gotten into visual journaling. I simply remind them that what they’re creating in their visual journal is just for them. We talk about boundaries as to why they might show it or who they might show it to, and why they may not. I remind them that they have a choice. It's almost like it's giving them permission to try something new that’s not meant to be consumed by someone else. So, when they have that permission, it's like a snowball. It just keeps going and it’s really wild to see the kinds of projects that people have taken on or said yes to that they never would have even considered doing before. Oftentimes, I don't hear back from the people that I work with right away. And then months later, I’ll hear from a participant and they’ll say that they wouldn't have thought they could have done a certain creative project had they not worked with me in visual journals. I’m kind of blown away by that.
A month after that retreat in Iceland I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. I was in so much pain, I couldn't do what I used to do. My family saw that I enjoyed visual journaling and they were constantly encouraging me to try to keep doing it, almost to the point of nagging. I was like “You don't understand. I can't.” But it was a good reminder for me that, yeah, I did enjoy that. So how could I visual journal now with some limitations that I had? So, I changed my practice. I use it to distract me from my pain. I was processing all these emotions and feelings. I was grieving what I thought my future would be without rheumatoid arthritis. I was worried about what I had done in the past that may have caused this, about how it would affect my son, my husband, all the relations that I have, as well as if I was going to live to the next year, because when I was at my worst I didn't know if I would make it. So I had all these thoughts running through my head and visual journaling was a way to slow all of that down, it really helped me be present. And that's what I find that I'm doing now when I'm working with people. I’m getting them to focus on like I said earlier, that process. What's going on with their body, what are the thoughts that are coming in and out of their mind. It seems to slow them down without worrying about the past or fearing the future. We're just looking at what's happening in this moment. Sometimes, all you need to focus on is the sound of your pen moving across the page, the images that you're sorting through in a magazine, the paint that you're splashing on your paper. You can do it for a couple of minutes, or two hours but you have a choice.
So would you say that visual journaling is for everyone? What about people who say that they're not creative, or they're not artists?
Those people are my favorites. I prove them wrong. Well, they prove themselves wrong really. I just give them the space to explore. Like I said, I feel like sometimes I'm just the permission grantor and encourager. I can be your biggest cheerleader, but I also will challenge you. There's a practice that I like to do, especially when people fear the blank page and say that they don’t know what to do. I tell them to take something, anything, and make a mark on it. Drop a pen from up above, grab scrap paper from your kid’s crafting supplies. Just start marking on it. It’s not precious, you can’t ruin it. You can just begin.
Of course, I will say this practice is for anyone. But if you're not into it, you're not into it, so don’t do it. But if you're curious, no matter what your skill level is, even if you think you can't draw, you can put something down on a paper. That's it. It can be as simple as that.
Who or what inspires you?
I'm inspired by Sheree Angela Matthews, the woman who got me in to visual journaling and helped me kind of settle into it. She runs The Earth Sea Love podcast, and she was the one who had the retreat in Iceland. We had met online but I only met her physically in person in Iceland. She lives in England, I’m in Canada, and we met in Iceland. So funny. We’ve been friends ever since. I’m also inspired by nature. I love going out for walks with my family. I’m always on the lookout for joy, for anything that makes me excited, happy. It could be anything from the colour of a bird, to the puppy in the window of a house that we walk by.
Let’s talk about boundaries around what you share about what you create and what you don’t share.
I think early on because I was into drawing and art, I got tapped on the shoulder by family and friends to make all the birthday cards, and it quickly wasn’t fun. So now it feels like I'm making up for lost time where I can just make it for me.
I have strict boundaries, when it comes to who can look in my journal, even what they can say. My husband and son know that if they see me making something here, they do not need to comment. You do not need to say that you like it, you don’t need to say you don't like it, because this is practice for me. I might share something with them. But oftentimes I don't. I had a participant comment that I shared a lot of my journals on Instagram, but I don’t. I'm only showing what I want and I'm only speaking about it in ways that I choose to. I'm very conscious of what I'm sharing and why. And even when I show somebody a page they will see certain things, but they don't know everything that's gone into that, right? That's for me. There's so many layers and those layers have meaning mainly to me, they might mean something to someone else. I’m being really calculated in making sure that this practice remains fun and enjoyable for me, then I get to share that practice with other people.
How often do you run your courses?
Last year it was February, June, and October. This year, I'm thinking it's probably going to be twice a year, February and October, but I'm working on projects and collaborations throughout the year as well. I really have to manage my time and my energy because of my disease so I try not to over commit and make sure there’s a lot of space. I need to make sure that I can continue living my life, beyond visual journaling.
On average, how many participants do you have in class?
We don’t go over 10. If it's a shorter workshop, like A Fun Mess, I had about 20 people that sign up for that in December. I try to keep it intimate. We are creating community. Not only do you notice the wisdom that sneaks out of you, but what you glean off of other people can also be quite amazing. When people come in with their stories, those aren't for anybody else. That stays in the group. I never share my participants work. If they want to share, then they can go ahead and do that. I don't even take pictures of Zoom. I hate when people take screenshots of Zoom.
I subscribe to your newsletter. And I like that you're always giving recommendations or letting people know what you're reading or what you're watching. So what are you into right now?
I’m still making my way through Black Futures. I thought that I would read it from cover to cover, but instead I just dive in when I feel inspired and go on an adventure. I’ve got books galore. My husband always knows that I’m being inspired when he sees the books pile up on the coffee table, my desk, my nightstand. I recently watched Flack. It was ok. I want to go back and revisit Lovecraft Country. I have the book but I haven’t read it as yet. When the show came out, to me it was like a healing balm. From the visuals to the messaging. It’s a love story. If everybody wants to enjoy it, fine, but it feels like it was made for Black people. The accompanying podcast is so good. I’d watch an episode and then listen to the podcast and that made it even more rich. The other thing on HBO is I May Destroy You. Fantastic. That and Lovecraft Country were some of the best TV shows that I watched in 2020. So yeah, those are a few of the things that I'm currently obsessed with, but my interests are varied and they can change quickly.
Follow Olwen on Instagram
Interview by Glodeane Brown
Photos provided by Olwen Wilson
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