Mexico book making.

I was invited to Mexico recently to teach at an art retreat organised by Gabriela Domville.  During the week, each person made their own sketchbook, stitching and glueing pages, and making a fabric bound, hard back cover… the sketchbooks were used throughout the week to collect images, notes and materials, recording our journey through Oaxaca city. 

Alongside the bookmaking we explored collage and writing techniques, creating ‘Body-scan drawings’, a process that has become central to my work in recent years, part of my #bodiesoflandandwater series. Mixing drawing, collage and automatic

writing to draw with words and breakdown/challenge formal ideas of writing, poetry and journaling. The week was process driven, emphasising the value of mistakes, spontaneity, confusion, being lost, drawing on whatever you find or stumble across. My hope was that each person would go home being able to make another sketchbook, having a new set of techniques and tools to help cultivate creative flow in their art practice. 

I am an obsessive sketchbook keeper. I am convinced that the act of drawing and writing in a sketchbook (as opposed to digital devices) is a way to enhance and develop your art practice and to improve your mental health. A sketchbook or journal becomes a kind of analogue hard drive, downloading data from your brain and the spaces around you. A sketchbook is a net to catch ideas and gather debris and detritus that you discover through the day. Keeping a sketchbook is both a way to think more and to stop thinking too much. The book becomes a memory sponge. The book is a well of ideas to dip and dive into later when you want to rediscover ideas, marks and moves. This is not how all artists work, but it really works for me… and I’ve seen it work for many people, of all ages, all disciplines and abilities. 

Maybe now, at a time of fast moving, digital, ai-driven technologies, making and drawing in a sketchbook feels almost like a protest or an effort to move in the opposite direction, against the mainstream. A sketchbook is a portable creative space, off-line, not for sale, private and unable to run out of batteries. It is a simple thing that somehow reflects the personality and nuance of the person who makes it.  

I am so grateful for the opportunity to travel and teach. Both these things fuel my work and feed back into my own curiosity and understanding of myself and the world.