Keeping Sketchbooks

Recently I pulled out my dusty old sketchbooks and few of the newer ones to trace my footsteps through the world of academics to my present state of being as an artist and writer. With over thirty years of sketches, poetry and short story writing to wade through I felt excited and yet overwhelmed by the prospect of excavating my past. It's like inserting myself into a time capsule, reliving things that might be better forgotten in the fog of faulty cellular memory. At the same time I might discover some possible elucidating and beautiful moments in time. Surrendering to the unknown I opened the oldest book first containing yellowed, cracked and torn pages of figure drawings, writings of a youthful exuberant and tumultuous young mind and some things I simply can't mention here. 

Often I thought of simply throwing these books out because if anyone else ever read this stuff or saw some of the rather provocative drawings, I might be accussed as being in need of medical attention which would feel pretty embarrassing while I'm still alive. Not that I'm all that self conscious about what others think, but hey.......I really am, but not in an insecure way. I am happy to say that I did keep these journals because there is something quite elucidating and beautiful about being able to revisit yourself, not in a narcissistic way, but as a tool to learn and observe your own process of maturing emotionally, spiritually, creatively and technically. Also, it allows me to create some new ideas from older material, though most of the time I would rather let sleeping dogs snore. After a few weeks of reading and looking through old sketches I am quite happy that I decided to keep these books, which continue to propel and inspire me in numerous ways.

My suggestion to all artist and writers is to keep all your note/sketch books so that you can visit them and so that others might be able to share in your process of creation.