sketchbook report, part 2 ~ {2012}

Continuing the story of my visit to the Oakland tour of the Sketchbook Project, let's start with a gorgeous book by Satomi Sugimoto. This book was beautiful, with very fluid works of unknown yet seemingly natural (and therefore potentially familiar) objects. Were they living things? Scientific stills of one liquid dissolving into another? Enlarged images of seeds? It was hard to tell, but each page had a new form and a singular beauty.

I had come across Satomi's sketchbook on the Art House site and really enjoyed it online. Of course it was even better in person, and these pictures don't really do it justice, as I seemed to be sitting in a darker area of the library when I took them. Along with Satomi's book, we received Michael Ciccotello's book. He has a really great free-flowing style and often fills the entire page with connected images. He drew everything during his train commute which was kind of neat to consider while turning the pages.

If you'd like to see his whole book, he put it online here and you can flip the pages with your arrow keys.

I met a fellow Sketchbook Project artist in Oakland during my visit, Eliza Wee. She was sitting at the same table as me, and we got to chatting a little and sharing some books we'd each checked out. I showed her my book and hoped to see hers but she'd already turned it in. Since it was getting late the tour was not allowing any new books to be checked out, so I looked her up online later, and found her artwork with a most engaging title, Topography of the Spork as a Young Artist. There are spoons and forks, and yes, sporks, plus dogs and some realistic pages and some very cute cartoons too. You should definitely check her out! She's ewee on the Art House site and also has a great set of Sketchbook Project photos and notes here on flickr. I was really happy to make her acquaintance. I really like her style.

Nice to meet up with my own book again at the tour.

One of the things I love about the Sketchbook Project is the new friendships I've made. Two more artists I've met in 2012:

Lelainia Lloyd ~ she was the first person to check out my book on the 2012 tour which made me really happy, not just because my book finally got seen on the tour, but mainly because she is such a kind person with a very generous and caring spirit as well as being a talented artist. She wrote a great post about visiting the tour in Vancouver on her blog and you might also enjoy posts about her participation in Challenging the Myths: Disability and Art museum show. I like her blog as there are lots of photos of Vancouver and community activities she's involved in like the Rick Hansen 25th Anniversary Relay. She also has an Etsy shop with vintage postcards and such.

Alison Lew ~ a Bay Area artist! She travels all around as a flight attendant and snaps photos of all kinds of cool art and yummy food she finds along the way on her tumblr. She returned several times to the Oakland Sketchbook Project tour and posted a lot of great pics of her visits, including the Closing Night Party. Totally made me wish I were there! Her sketchbook this year, Travels and Eats, is full of artful, delicious food drawings (largely sweets) laid over maps of the places where she ate them. I really, really, wished I had more time so I could have checked out her book!

I took photos of a couple more of the sketchbooks I got to see during the Oakland tour, but I'm a little disappointed with myself as it turns out I didn't keep perfect track of whose art I was reading. Above you can see some of the books we had checked out. I remember enjoying both of the books you see on the left but I'm not sure who the artists are. The third one over that's kind of hidden might be Michael Ciccotello's, then there's mine and then a corner of Jessica Gowling's that is being read.

For those first two, Uncharted Waters and One Day at a Time, I found two names in my hasty notes that might go with them: Carla Usery and Jasibe Cure-Twede. I couldn't find any corresponding art in the Art House list of artists to verify, so... hopefully I'm giving proper credit. The books were very interesting. Here are a few photos of the pages inside.

I went to the tour armed with a giant list of artists I wanted to check out, either because I loved their work last year or because I'd discovered them newly this year. I'll just mention them here before I go... Rossana Bossu', Justus Cekauskas, William Yu, Heather Reinhardt, Junko Miyakoshi, Chantal Vincent... and many more...

Sketchbook Project 2013 is open for sign-ups, now, with lots of new and fun themes to inspire. Are you signing up? Go ahead and try it!