It’s celebration time at Leafdays.com. I have become a personal historian and want to mark the occasion with a blog party.

Let me explain. Most of my collages and altered books are centred around images of my family and my ancestors. Why? Because I see what I do not so much as art for art’s sake but as a way to capture memories in artwork.

This means choosing personal pictures, and surrounding them with imagery that is meaningful to me—or to the people I am making that particular piece for.

Knowing this, my friend Leslie urged me to become a personal historian—someone who helps people tell their story and preserve their memories. Many personal historians do this by writing or editing memoirs for their clients, or compiling video and photo archives. I do it differently—through artwork.

I make personal or family history collages to clients’ specification, using their photographs and images that are meaningful to them, and incorporating some text that tells their story.

It’s taken me a while to take up Leslie’s suggestion, but I have finally taken the plunge and joined the Association of Personal Historians. And how better to honour this moment than with an artsy blog party?

The party will take place on Friday, April 17 and the theme is, obviously, celebrating memories in art. Anyone is welcome to join in. All you have to do is to celebrate your family or personal memories present or past on your blog or site on April 17, adding a link back to my blog and posting a comment here so I know you are playing.

You could post photographs of your children, an essay of an experience that marked you, or a collage portraying your parents or grandparents. Nothing is out of bounds so long as it is meaningful to you and reasonably family-friendly.

I’ll create a list of participants so you can hop from one blog to the next taking in all the visual, evocative, inspiring treats. Oh, and there will be giveaways: a custom-made family history collage for one lucky winner, a downloadable collage sheet for two winners and a digitally collaged tag for three winners (all chosen at random through random.org). Please invite your friends to the party—the more the merrier.

On the right is a little button you can use, if you want. The code is below, just copy and paste it on your site:

<a href="http://www.leafdays.com/blog-party/blog-party-celebrating-your-memories/" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.leafdays.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/partybutton.jpg" alt="partybutton.jpg" /></a>
And don’t forget to let me know that you are joining the fun by leaving a comment to this post or emailing me at carlapassino AT gmail.com. Remember, April 17 is the date. I look forward to partying with you!