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NEW SKETCHBOOKSExcerpts from Sketchbooks 8 - 12
 After seeing the documentary Crumb, I started gathering sketchbooks and *trying* to emulate the obsessive image making that Robert Crumb showcased in the film. It took a while to get anything worth while in the first ones but they’ve now become a much needed venue for notes, found images, drawings, plans, quotes, doodles, finished pieces and brainstorming. Trial and error brought me to nail the right sketchbook with Bienfangs 70lb spiral-bound 9 x 12 (so that an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet can be fully taped inside). Other critical findings have been Chris Ware’s heartbreakingly passionate sketchbook pieces, and Gary Panter’s spontaneous scratchy documentations.
*A few years of unpleasant health problems resulted in much of Sketchbooks Eight, Nine and Ten being done in hospital beds. Due to the intravenous machines that needed to be hooked up to my drawing hand, I occasionally had to draw some entries with my wrong (left) one. While not ideal, it ended up translating a fragility and unsteadiness (above image number 13 comes to mind) that reflected my situation. Oddly enough, it was while I was waiting to have my large (then ulcerated) intestine removed that a nurse pointed out how interesting it was that most of my hospital sketches (unaware to me at the time) had intricate tube like patterns being painfully twisted around...
One particularly telling incident had a busy nurse accidentally tip over a jug of water on my pile of sketches … luckily someone was around to separate the pages and slap them on the wall. I was discouraged, but once they dried up the frustration revealed a chaotic beauty that carried in it a quality directly relevant to what I was going through - The need to momentarily embrace a dominating disorder that I wasn’t in control of. 
Robert Crumb: Chris Ware: Gary Panter: |
