Here are the texts of the two blog posts I wrote about my participation in this project...
August 3, 2010
I am one of almost 10,000 people currently working on the same idea— filling individual 5×8-inch sketchbooks with … whatever … sketchbooks that will be part of an exhibit traveling next year to 6 American cities, including my own San Francisco. (A nice excuse for a party.) The sketchbooks will then go to live in the Brooklyn (NY) Art Library.
The idea belongs to The Art House Co-op, which operates a number of imaginative art-community-building projects from its Brooklyn base. I signed up via the website and chose a topic from among 25 on offer. I soon received my 80-page sketchbook in the mail. My topic is “The View from Up Here,” which I took because it made me think of landscapes, and I want more practice at drawing and painting what I actually see around me. I am in the process of going to as many elevated natural spaces in and around San Francisco as I can, producing pen/ink/watercolor sketches of “the view” and writing short essays about the spaces themselves. The result I envision is an idiosyncratic sketchbook/travelogue. Who knows how others will interpret the same topic?
And who knows how many more thousands will join in? If you’re interested, you can sign up until October 31. Sketchbooks are due back January 15, 2011 and the tour begins in March.