Global Sketchbook Project Day @ Eve N Odd Gallery

Eve N Odd Sign

Arthouse Co-op [Link] is a community of artists that works on projects and exhibits together. Anyone can join. Some of their projects have involved sketchbooks. A few weeks ago Global Sketchbook Day was celebrated world-wide by artists' organizations, galleries, etc.

In St. Petersburg, this was held at Jennifer Kosharek's Eve N Odd gallery. It's a small gem of a space in the Crislip Arcade where first-rate, top quality events are held on a regular basis.

Artists' Sketchbooks

The artist's sketch/note book is part diary/journal. Womb and crucible for the evolution and forging of ideas, it is the skunkworks of the creative soul. One rarely gets the opportunity to look into them. Most people have seen more of Leonardo's sketchbooks than probably any living artist. There are many works on the pages of these books, but they are also works of art as a whole. Each is like a portable retrospective micro-show. I remember seeing some of Van Gogh's sketchbooks on display at a show about him and Gauguin at the Art Institute in Chicago. Exquisite, passionate drawings and small scrawly writing. It was a private and privileged view.

From Wade Slater's sketchbook

 The books at Eve N Odd were nothing short of fantastic glimpses into the artist's life and the process. These days we are inundated with large (and larger) works, whose size pushes us back, but these books are intimate, accessible, inviting and seductive. Some images in them are sketches, but others go well beyond that, as finished small works that can stand on their own, but will never be framed and exhibited. Continuity is something one seldom experiences in the art world. In sketchbooks, that is the context of each page, those before and after it.


Jennifer treated me to a comprehensive tour of her sketchbooks, including one that no one else had ever seen. I was blown away by the quality, the deep humanism, and figurative transparency of the work. Here are a few pictures from that magical session...

  



 







Congratulations to all the artists and Jennifer Kosharek for an amazing sketchbook afternoon. I could have spent days. if not weeks. poring over them.

--- Luis