Journeys

Rodrigues discusses why she creates art journals

Q: How long have you been drawing and writing in your journals?

Hegina Rodrigues: Since my early teens.

Q: Why did you start making journals? Were you drawing in them?

HR: I started about the time I left my home country Brazil. I wanted to put down my feelings and at the time it was just writing. In the beginning I would rip them up and throw them away as I didn't want anyone reading them. Then I thought it would be better to start painting or drawing over the words. That way people could not read them and it did not matter if I remembered what I had written or not.

Q: As a teenager were you painting?

HR: At first I was doing a lot of collages with photographs and paint. So that worked with the journals.

Q: Did the journals inspire your paintings and artwork?

HR: It was all a stepping stone into what was coming next. Becoming an artist.

Q: Once you had become an artist and painter, why did you continue to make journals?

HR: It is a way of putting my feelings down. And I write down poems, excerpts from books, anything that touches my emotional side. I'm writing to myself and the journals bring light to my inner conflicts.

I have been inspired by artist Robin Pacific to continue to make my journals part of art. I have several journals on my shelves I want to paint and draw in. Then they become works on their own.

Interviewer: Joss Maclennan (Q)