Jennifer New, Drawing From Life: the Journal as Art
(Princeton Architectural Press/Raincoast Books, 2005)
Although Bridget Jones maintained a fascinating, albeit single-minded record of her life . . . there are other reasons for keeping a book with you on a daily basis. Some keep a journal to remind them of appointments; others use it to document their thoughts, feelings and activities. Jennifer New, in this marvelously entertaining new book, documents dozens of celebrities (and non-celebrities) who use paper and pen for this most personal of purposes.
Drawing From Life is divided into four major sections; after a preface and an introduction, New sorts the samples into chapters called "Observation," "Reflection," "Exploration" and "Creation." To illustrate each area, she provides illustrations from the personal journals of Maira Kalman, Lynda Barry, Mike Figgis and David Byrne, among many others. The book provides an intimate and fascinating glimpse at each of the contributors, and ideas for sprucing up one's own journal as well.
The preface begins, "Journals are unsung heroes, the working stiffs of creative life. They live in the pockets and shoulder bags of all sorts of people. A birder on a morning walk, a scientist in the field, a film director delayed in a foreign airport, a fashion designer musing over next season's collection, a teenager avoiding schoolwork; all keep journals as trusted confidantes and reliable workhorses."
I started keeping one myself, after reading a particularly pithy comment in a magazine in a doctor's waiting room. There were too many people there for me to tear out the page, so I scrambled around for a bit of paper to write this quote down. Didn't want to forget it. It might come in handy someday. I realized then and there that a journal (or at least a pocket notebook) might be worth having. I use one to this day to document ideas for stories, or songs, and to remember important events. The original quote? "Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them," Alfred North Whitehead!
On the bus coming to work, there was a fellow who, every time he boarded a bus, would sit down, get out his pencil (always a pencil, never a pen) pull a well-thumbed booklet from his shirt pocket and write down the number of the bus he was riding. Journals can be used for the mundane, and they can grow to be extraordinary. Artist John Copeland draws, writes, creates collages, and ends up with a book that looks eminently publishable! The Introduction describes other journals. "Photographer Robert ParkeHarrison relies on his journal during every step of the creative process and values it . . . because it contains so many unused ideas." For some a journal is "a security blanket . . . internal maps . . . memory banks. . . ." and more. The form they take can be as varied as a collection of yellow legal pages, or a hardcover book, large, small, medium-sized, lined, unlined, graphed, just so long as they provide space for all those "unused ideas."
New supports her introductory notes (a virtual history of the journal) with illustrations. Lewis & Clark's features hand drawn maps, drawings of flora and fauna and notes galore. Leonardo da Vinci's shows inventions and sketches. Thomas Edison drew a rudimentary phonograph.
"Observation," that is, "close observation of a single subject . . . is the kind of work that happens less and less these days," New states in her opening comments to the first section proper. But in journals . . . this kind of focus is typical. Maira Kalman (who paints delightful covers for the New Yorker magazine and illustrates childrens books) finds inspiration all around her, and fills her journals with quick drawings to be used as source material back in the studio. Textile artist Christopher Leitch keeps journals of his dreams. Each morning he writes in great detail what he dreamt, and illustrates it. Each entry is dated (with a rubber stamp) separated from the other days by a dotted line and the drawings are hand coloured! His pages are exquisite. Jenny Keller is a botanical illustrator whose journal pages are watercolour sketches and hand printed notes. Beautiful. And Martin Wilner's cartoony journal drawings find place in his paintings to expand within the context of the canvas. But on the small page they also have life and vitality.
There's a sense of privacy, intimacy, of looking into the artists' heads about this book. I could go on to describe page after page of wonderful personal expressions. The other three sections are really not that different. The individual artist uses the journal page to observe, to reflect, to explore and to create, and Jennifer New has separated them out in that order. But really the pages are glimpses at works in progress. More than that they are glimpses of lives in progress. Sensitive, passionate, sometimes clumsy, half-finished, even ill-observed, the sketches and notes take on forms and shapes of their own. Added to on a regular basis, some are organized, and the page turned . . . others the page is completely filled, used up, to, not just the margin but to the edge of the paper. Each one has its own beauty.
Really, you need to see these samples for yourself. Check out the first concept for David Byrne's "big suit," or Mike Figgis's "film designs." Wherever you begin in Drawing From Life one thing is certain . . . you'll go on from there. And, your next stop will be at the stationery store . . . to get yourself a blank page.
