The B could also be for Book

Newsflash! I'm starting a new project. As many of you know, I have this thing for documentation/archiving/preservation/capturing-of-fleeting-moments. Evidence for this impulse of mine can be seen in my flickr sets of my entire polaroid collection*, my paintings, my post-it note drawings*, my aesthetic-phonetic project*, and maybe eventually my collection of ticket stubs for practically every movie I've seen in the past 10 years. I know, that's a little weird. But I like to collect things, and I especially like to archive and organize and document and preserve for posterity. I think it might be great one day to be able to show my kids what I was into and doing and creating from a young age onward... and in the meantime, my family and friends, too. My thinking is that if I continue to preserve these things, hopefully I can create a sort of seamless continuum that can connect my young self to my slightly older self, to my early adult self, to my middle aged self, to my retiree self, to my rickety old man self, and explain how each of those selves transitioned from one to the next. It's interesting to me, at least, as a kind of ongoing, neverending experiment.

So along those lines, when I was sixteen, I started keeping a "serious" sketchbook. I had sketchbooks before this, but they were mostly drawings of spaceships, airplanes, racecars, and teenage mutant ninja turtles. But when I started getting interested in creating real art for the first time, I was advised by my art teachers to buy a hard-bound blank-page sketchbook, and draw in it frequently, and keep it to look at later. So I did this... and I've been doing it ever since.

I really jumped on the sketchbook train. I loved the concept of it. I brought it with me everywhere. I drew in it at summer camp, at the beach, at school during PE, at home on the trampoline in the backyard, in planes, and at work. Early on, I made it clear to my friends (also burgeoning artists) that they were not only welcome, but encouraged to draw or write anything they felt like any time they wanted to in my sketchbooks. Sometimes I had more than one book going, but usually, the drawings and the books were completed chronologically, and I saved them all.

So in effect, these books became a pretty vivid document of my life from age 16 til now. I can look at certain pages and recall where I was and what was happening in detail - like the completely abstract elaborate scribbling in book 2 or 3 that I did at like 4 am when I was drunk at a fishing camp with my Baton Rouge friends waiting for a honey-soaked cigarette to come out of the oven (an experiment which failed dramatically). Or the drawing of the inside of the staff cottage at Camp Beckwith that I made during a particularly mellow rest-time after lunch with my swim shorts still wet from sailing - I remember the air conditioner was on too high and it was chilly. I know that this is pretty personal stuff that the average viewer wouldn't have any way of picking up on. But with my commentary, there's a pretty rich history of me and my friends in these books. And of course, there are other pages that certain people in the world would probably have a certain connection to and might like to see. Naturally, a lot of the drawings are bad, or meaningless, or uninteresting. But there are a few good ones, and a few that can be accompanied by good stories, and a few that are just funny.

So here's the project: I, Charlie B. Spaht, full of pretty good intentions, an ambition seasoned with a little bit of hubris, and a curiosity to see what'll happen if I do it, propose to create a new "blog" in which I will post scans of every page of my "serious" sketchbooks, in the order that they were created, starting with book #1 (which begins in December '96,) without skipping pages no matter how embarassing, one page per day, with commentary when relevant, until I reach the present day, at which point I guess I'll keep going, but maybe not once a day. In addition, at the point of completion for each book, I'll create a flickr set for easier reference (and organization).

I think this should be an interesting experiment. It should satisfy my need to collect and document my work, possibly explain a few things about what makes me tick, and at the least, provide a momentary diversion every day or so for a few of you.

So, if you're so inclined, check it, don't wreck it; and feel free to bookmark it:

CHARLIE BOOK

p.s. this blog isn't going away - I'll still be posting non-sketchbook-related items here. just sayin. don't forget about 'dre.

UPDATE: 6/28/06
SKETCHBOOK #1 on Flickr

UPDATE: 10/05/06
SKETCHBOOK #2 on Flickr