How I Keep Sketchbooks

I pulled out all my previous sketchbooks this morning to do some looking. I do this from time to time when I’m looking for information or inspiration. I’m always surprised when I look back through mine at how useful I find them.

a stack of sketchbooks

I first began to keep a sketchbook in late 2014/early 2015. Before this time, I did not see how they were relevant to me and my art making. I do not draw or sketch, and so I did not understand how they might be a valuable part of my process.  This all changed when a colleague at school explained how she had recently learned to use them. For her sketchbooks were a place to journal, attach images, to make notes on ideas or specific pieces, and to record feedback from critiques and studio visits.

 Sketchbooks for me are a record of things that caught my attention, artists that I’ve discovered, concepts/words/images that are feeding my process. I often jot down notes, quotes and free writing based on what I’m reading, researching, and talks that I’ve attended. I’ve attached show cards for art events. I attach imagery of artists and their works that inspire me. Usually, I write a few sentences about what drew me to the work. Things I noticed right away, and sometimes insight about how I can resolve a question I’ve been having in my own work.

Sketchbook images of a trip to Santa Fe in 2015

 They serve to remind me of what I was interested in at a particular time and many of those ideas can be renewed. Often there are a brief outline for a piece that I thought about working on and somehow lost interest. Sketchbooks are a time capsule. I usually put the date on the cover of when I began the book and when it was finished.

 I have a few don’ts for using sketchbooks. Don’t hold back, a sketchbook isn’t precious. I use very inexpensive spiral books with blank paper. I tried to use nicely bound books that I purchased at art supply shops. This didn’t work for me as it was too nice to write in. Write everything in them. Usually I’ll find monthly, weekly, or daily goals of things I wanted to work on, deadlines that I was keeping an eye on. Sometimes there are journal entries when I had just a few ideas or feelings that I was working through.

Second, you don’t have to show them to anyone. They can be just for you. You can draw (badly or well) in them. You can cross things out. You can work through ideas – creating a visual record of things you tried that went well or didn’t. I print out some of my process pictures and then just tape them in. My sketchbooks will never be on display in a gallery. They are just for me—for now and for later.

Notes from a online Textile Talk and word notes from a audiobook that I wanted to remember.

Spring Fever

Spring has come to the Midwest although there is talk of cold weather and a possibility of snow tomorrow?! I have been feeling spring fever to get outside as much as possible. Spring and fall are my favorite seasons. Spring is a burst of energy – birds return (my hummingbird feeders are stocked and ready for action), everything is in flower and the weather ranges from spring rains to blue skies and crystal-clear days that just make your heartache with the beauty. I’ve found myself distracted from my work to watch everything outside, until my allergies chase me back inside.

Dogwood Tree in Flower

 I am preparing for a solo show that opens in September. Much of the work is finished, but I want to push myself a bit more. I have the time and plenty of ideas to work towards. I love having a deadline and a span of time to really see what I can do within it.

I’ve been slowly working on another whole cloth stitched map quilt form. I dyed the linen a few months ago with no real expectation for it. When it was finished, I knew it was another large map similar to one I stitched last year during the early lockdown days. I’m just beginning to put in the many layers of hand stitching that will go into the piece. The perfect color to define the many bodies of water within the piece turned out to be a thin rayon machine embroidery thread. It is a very slick thread which means it floats in and out of the cloth well.

The beginnings of a map

I’ve been breaking down my areas to stitch in order not to let my monkey mind get me worried about how much there is to do on this piece. Stitch by stitch, the work will get done. I might need to be reminded about this mantra later.

The stitching begins.

Going Slower and Sharing Joy

Happy New Year!

I had a nice two week break over the holidays. I did a lot of cooking, reading, watching programs and reflecting on my studio practice. I’ve been feeling burned out and a little out of focus. During our break, I looked at a list that I had made in a sketchbook of things that I wanted to do. I picked one and started to work. For years I’ve added weave with my handspun to this list. I pulled out a wheel and set to work spinning up some wool to use with some tapestry experiments that I’ve been thinking about for a long time. It seems my inclination is to slow my process down even more and to spend even more time engaged with the work and idea. Since we are still hip deep in the pandemic, it isn’t like I don’t have the time to go deeper. I need to finish up some bobbins of a wool, silk and mohair blend that has been lingering a long time. I’m working at plying them up and clearing some bobbins for tapestry spinning.

One of the few things I miss during the pandemic is traveling and going to hear live music. I’m not the only one as many musicians turned to various platforms to share livestreams performances.

 Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn began to host Banjo House Lockdowns in March on Facebook and continued to present a live performance each Friday. The performances were low tech, intimate, charming, and often featured their two children. My family would wrap up work, make dinner and then sit down in front of the TV to attend the concert. The episodes are now available on Béla’s Youtube channel in a Banjo House Lockdown playlist

I highly recommend it. We had the pleasure to see Béla and Abigail live in 2017. It remains one of my favorite concerts of all time.

Before the Thanksgiving holiday, I wondered to my husband why he wasn’t playing music more. Sometimes you get busy and the thing you love seems to be the first thing to go in the race to keep up with the grind. He began to play more after that, and it has brought us both a lot of pleasure. We spend some time each day watching so music related content on Youtube. We stumbled into guitarist Rhett Shull’s channel

 and have been enjoying his Backstage Live concerts. There are five past livestreams available currently and the next on is scheduled January 30th. We watched our first one in November and it honestly felt like we had gone out for live music. The band does covers, original music, jams with guest performers and it is just what I needed. I hope when the pandemic ends, we can see the band live.

 Another Youtube channel recommendation is Baumgartner Restoration. Julian Baumgartner is a fine art restore based in Chicago. He shares his studio and his work through videos on Youtube. You can watch to see paintings get brough back to life under Julian’s careful hands and it is a bit of magic. The highlight for me – when he makes his custom swabs out of sticks and cotton and removes old discolored varnish and the painting’s true colors are first revealed. It is oddly soothing. There is something about watching someone highly skilled in their craft that just makes my heart happy. The process of conservation and restoration is a behind the scenes activity. Julian shows just how much labor and training go into making it happen successfully. Don’t miss his studio tour that was just released in early December. I love seeing an organized workspace!