Sketchbook Project 2011 Hits The Road

The reports are that the opening for the Arthouse Co-op Sketchbook Project 2011 at the Brooklyn Art Library was a big success.  There were over 28000 artist signed up to create a 40 page moleskin sketchbook. I don't have the final numbers yet, but if even half for the artists followed through on this project, that's still 14000 sketchbooks. Arthouse Co-op has created a web page for each of the participating artists. Here's the link to my page, which also has links to some of the artists that I like. There is also a very nice Arthouse Co-op blog too.

But the project doesn't stop there! The small staff at Arthouse Co-op are now boxing up all the sketchbooks and shelves into a moving van, and taking the project on a 9 stop tour across the United States, which includs a stop at the Austin Museum Of Art, March 12 (During the SXSW Festival) in Austin TX.

 

Sketchbook Project 2011

Just Below The Surface, The Cover, originally uploaded by Brad Ford Smith.

This is the front cover of the sketchbook I sent to The Sketchbook Project 2011. SBP 2011 is an exhibit of moleskine sketchbooks sent to the Arthouse Co-op at the Brooklyn Art Library. The project includes 28835 artists in 94 countries. Starting this summer, SBP 2011 will tour 8 different cities. Stopping at the Austin Museum of Art in March.

To see more images from my sketchbook check out my Flickr site.

For more info on the project check out the Arthouse Co-op blog.

The Nature Of Sketchbooks

My use of sketchbooks began with a journal in high school. Journaling was a way to sort out and examine all the unexplainable actions and reactions that occur while coexisting in a building filled with hormone driven teenagers. Over the years my artwork and my journals have merged, resulting in sketchbooks filled with images that are maps through a world that still seems to be driven by questionable actions and reactions.

For a long time I used my sketchbooks as a kind of petridish, place to compose my thoughts and images, and then transfer that information to an outside medium such as painting or sculpture. Two things occur by doing this, first there is a shift from the reactionary thought process to the mechanical mind, a change from what do I think about this, to how do I reproduce this. Secondly, processing the imagery remove some of the personal baggage associated with that imagery. This makes the artwork more comfortable to display in public

The sketchbooks have a symbiotic relationship. I work in multiple sketchbooks at the same time. Some of them I have been reexamining and reworking for years. Others seem to fill up over night. All of them feed from each other to expose new possible relationships and directions.

There is a rawness inside the sketchbooks that is related to the subconscious grittiness of reactionary thought. Because of the imperfections and flaws associated with this rawness, the sketchbooks have always been held back from public viewing, but I have come to realize that this rawness also conveys an honesty and truth that is after all the foundation to all great art.