Sketchbook Project 2014

Just in time, I completed my book for the Sketchbook Project 2014 and mailed it off. Alas, in my rush  to the post office to make the deadline there was no time to scan all my pages properly. I had to make do with some quick iPhone shots and I've finally posted them on flickr. 

This year I chose the theme, "This is not about me." On one of the first pages, I wrote this little explanation of the book's contents:

This is not about me.
This book is in remembrance of my father, A.W.S., who passed away in the last days of summer, 2013. We were lucky to enjoy one very intense, stressful, hopeful and sad year together ~ my dad, my sister and me united in the fight to extend his time with us. We all became closer than ever before, and one surprise he revealed shortly before he left was that he wrote haiku poetry. To me, they reflect his childhood in the Midwest and his time as a young man in Japan. I decided to preserve them here.

I selected 23 of his poems and arranged them by type: winter, life & love, summer and autumn. I'm very happy that some of my father's poems will be shared and preserved this way. We never collaborated on anything artistic while he was alive, but I think he would be happy with this little book with my drawings and his poems living together.

My book will be going on the California tour. I look forward to seeing it again this summer!