Eileen Honey has made more than a dozen creative journals since 2007.

Reddingite Eileen Honey was never a diary-writer as a child, she remembered at her home last week over coffee, but since 2007 shes taken to creating intricate journals of her experience in life in abstract and concrete ways.

Honeys artistic journals are varied from the moment she begins work on them; she uses both blank journals, and old, well-bound printed books she finds in Mark Twain Librarys back room as her launching points.

She fills page after page with drawings, paintings, writings, paper clippings, her sons Cub Scout badges, and various other items and tokens shes collected over the years. Shes completed more than 12 since she began 10 years ago.

Sometimes Honeys journals follow a theme, and sometimes they progress less structurally. Often she intersperses her own writing and musings alongside visual aspects of the journal though she doesnt always leave her words legible.

I write a whole lot of stuff on the pages but I cover it up sometimes, she said. Often, I just have to put words down.

Pointing to one entry in a recent journal that was written near one of her birthdays, she noted that whats written there you cant read, but its really the lyrics to a song. Its a memory I was reliving, but [by obscuring it] Im not sharing it completely.

Sharing is an important part of Honeys journaling. She shares many of her pages on a personal blog, and plans to eventually pass these journals down to her son.

Two pages from one of Honeys journals.

While they dont carry the same narrative direction as a plain diary, Honey said she hopes her son will gain a bit of understanding from her journals.

Im hoping he will put these in his own library and will learn more about me by looking at these books than if he was just looking at an album full of photos. They tell a lot about me, and a lot about him, as well. Its kind of my little legacy, she said.

As an activity, Honey said, journaling is an anti-computer activity that allows her to focus on the past, present and future in unique ways.

When youre sitting doing this, it becomes a very meditative activity. You really get deep into what youre doing, which is totally contrary to using a phone, something I find very, very cool.

Honey at the crafting table in her art room.

Inspiration for each page comes from a variety of places, whether it be the phrasing of an advertising postcard in the mail, or the obituary of a woman shes never met (in this case that of Mary Margaret Kasiewicz, a Reddingite who died in 2015).

I never knew this woman who died when she was 70 years old, Honey said. But I saved it because she was amazing and her life was amazing. Even though she was physically challenged, she traveled to Antarctica on a research vessel. She deserved attention.

Sometimes I wonder what she would think about some woman cutting out her obituary who wasnt a friend of hers. But I valued her. Thats what journaling is. Not every page has [such a deep] reason, but many of them do.

For weeks at a time, shell find herself at her crafting table hour after hour, Honey said. At other points, she might not look at her journals for long periods of time.

But one way or another, its an art shes planning to continue for a long time.

I dont know if Ive refined [my process of journaling], or if Ive just changed [since I started]. Some of the pages are different now than they were then, she said.

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Journaling is like 'meditation' for Reddingite - The Redding Pilot