Sample pages from the sketchbooks of artists Kate Castelli (left) and Racheal Anilyse (right).
Sketchfest
Unleash your inner artist with the Art House Co-op’s annual Sketchbook Project
By Kimberly Jeffries
Published: October 29th, 2010 | 5:25pm
Audience participation: It’s a concept closely associated with improv comedy shows, not nationally touring art exhibits. But the New York-based Art House Co-op is hoping to inspire indie artists to become museum-bound with their fifth annual Sketchbook Project. Anybody and everybody is invited to request a 5.5-by-8.5-inch Moleskine notebook, spend a few months filling it with inventive art, and send it in for a cross-country tour and a spot in the Brooklyn Art Library’s permanent collection.
“We consistently hear from our participants that the projects serve as powerful motivators,” says Eli Dvorkin, the Art House Co-op’s project manager. “From recent art-school grads to busy working moms, our artists often tell us that Art House keeps them involved with their artistic practice and offers a supportive and responsive community—even as lives change dramatically.”
Artists choose from a list of pre-deteremined idiosyncratic themes (examples this year include “adhere to me,” “dirigibles and submersibles,” and “science project gone wrong”) when they sign up; and then they have until January 15, 2011, to return their completed sketchbooks, at which point they’ll be organized for the tour that kicks off in February in Brooklyn before hitting up eight other cities across the country. Each Moleskine is assigned a unique barcode, all the better to catalog for the permanent collection and to notify the artist whenever a visitor checks out his or her book.
The deadline to request a sketchbook for this year’s project has been extended to November 15, and the $25 registration fee covers materials, shipping, and exhibit maintenance. In the project’s first year there were 250 participants, but as of late October 2010 more than 24,000 people had signed up—an exponential growth that Dvorkin attributes to better organization and better technological perks for artists and viewers alike.
“By Sketchbook 4, we had created a library system to deal with the chaos of bringing thousands of books across the country,” Dvorkin says. “Now, we’re able to offer digital archiving of each sketchbook, online library cataloging, and a system of notifications to keep artists in touch with their work. And next year’s tour will be the largest and most exciting we've ever attempted.”
For more information on the Sketchbook Project or to join in the fun, click here.
Issue #35
Comments
Want to tell us what you think? Please click here to log in or just click here for quick comments