Drawing from Life: The Journal as Art

In Drawing from Life: The Journal as Art, Jennifer New delves into the journals of 31 contributors, artists and writers, gardeners and scientists, all of whom open to the reader the most personal of their creations, the visual journal.

Gary Brown, who teaches journaling classes at the University of California Santa Barbara calls the journal, "my secret friend, enemy, counselor, definitely my map and at times a thief. It takes memory for us, the continuous accounting. Morally straight, it doesn't lie. It sharpens you, your dreams, and your eyes stay wide as a child's."

The journals in Drawing from Life document travel, eating habits, design processes, artistic endeavors, scientific exploration, and everyday life. Part meditative tool, play space, and record keeper, the visual journal is revealed as a vibrant and essential tool for the individuals featured here.

What is a journal then? New defines it in broad terms as, "a place where we record personal reflections, observations of our world, playful meanderings, and plans." She divides the book and its contributors into four categories: Observation, Reflection, Exploration, and Creation.

New classifies observation as the "most elemental purpose of a journal," and goes on to say that "a level of compulsiveness and exactitude is necessary to keep a journal devoted largely to observation." Included among the eight journalers in this section is Kansas City artist, Christopher Leitch, who from the age of 17 recorded the events of his dreams, accounts that frequently give rise to the artwork that appears amidst the written summaries.

In her journals, Jenny Keller renders the coastal marine life of her California home. The daughter of an artist mother and scientist father, Keller devised her own degree in science illustration at the University of California Santa Cruz and now teaches the program. Her loose renderings of jellyfish and sea turtles that appear in this book are at once artistically inspiring and scientifically accurate.

Jennifer New views reflection as an antidote to the cultural overload of Western society. Included in this chapter are the journals of John Copeland, whose surreal mixed media journal entries serve as a sort of laboratory for his finished pieces and can be found on www.johncopeland.com.

Tucker Shaw's journals are a reflection of his overarching interest in food and are part of a project that he started in January 2004, when he began photographing everything that he eats.

The largest chapter in Drawing from Life is Exploration, encompassing 11 journalers engaged in geographic, scientific, and artistic explorations through their visual journals. Included are the journals of Talking Heads front man, David Byrne, the pages of which seeded the notion of the trademark Big Suit featured visually on the band's "Stop Making Sense" tour.

Also inspirational in this section are the drawings of designer Sophie Binder, who while biking around the world made the choice to sketch her surroundings along the way, rendering the experience far more intimate than it might have been otherwise.

The final chapter, Creation, looks at journals that are purposeful preludes to the act of creation. These include visual journals of an architect, painter, gardener, photographer, landscape architect, and quilt-maker. For these, New calls attention to the role of the journal as a witness of creation, part of the process of creativity that oftentimes supercedes in significance the product. She quotes poet Adrienne Rich as saying, "The notes for the poem are the only poem."

For many of us, life is the poem, and the visual journal serves many functions along that road. Be it sandbox, soundboard, chronicler, or canvas, the journal is an integral and intimate aspect of the journey. I've personally journaled sporadically since the age of 21 and have always strived towards a more consistent practice. I look back on the books I've kept since that time as invaluable capsules of experience and creativity. In Drawing from Life, Jennifer New gives the veteran journalist reason to recommit to the process and prospective journalists ample inspiration to begin.