Sketchbook Project 2011 Tour: Seattle

As previously mentioned, I participated in the 2011 round of the Sketchbook project. Before I sent it off into the wide world, I did take photos and share on the blog (full Flickr set is here). 

Well, you know what they say about when you love something and it's meant to be... 

Just kidding. Actually, I was extremely fortunate that Seattle ended up being one of the cities that the project was going to tour. And last weekend, it came to town (like the circus! but with sketchbooks).

Greg and I took the light rail downtown, and then hoofed it over to Belltown to visit the project at Form Space Atelier, a teeny tiny little art gallery. The line to get in was quite long, because unbeknownst to me, they were requiring all visitors to sign up for new Brooklyn Art Library library cards. (So pro-tip, if anything from the BAL comes to visit you and you already have a card because you were a participating artist, do not leave the library card at home).

So once we got our cards we were each able to check out two sketchbooks at a time, of the 10,000 that were available at the gallery. It was pretty strictly controlled, there was no random browsing. Once you got your card, you went into another line and the hipster docents that were running the gig let you pick two sketchbooks at a time, by artist, location or theme. I decided to first grab mine (to see how it was doing) and one by Pam Garrison. Greg got two really cool random ones from some theme that was about numbers. 

There wasn't hardly any room in the gallery, so the whole sidewalk outside was just full of people reading all of these different and crazy cool sketchbooks. The whole scene was so full of positive happy people, brought together in community, in celebration of these personal pieces of art. It was a very cool experience. Even if my book hadn't been there, I still would have gone to visit.

After Greg and I swapped books (so we each got to read four), we went back for another round. Greg got another interesting set, and I got a random one and some from Kim Smith. Hurray! 

We ended up doing a third round, of one more book each. The goodness levels were variable, but it was all still very interesting. 

After that we were famished! So we headed to Pike Place Market for lunch. And that is a tale for another day. Needless to say, deliciousness was had. And then naps were needed. 

And that made it pretty much an awesome Saturday.

p.s.

More to come on this topic... I totally signed up for 2012 too. :)