April 16, 2021, 12:16pm
When I was a kid, there was nothing I loved more than a fresh new sketchbook (so much so that I tended to abandon them after filling out four or five drawings of people standing on tippie toes because I never did figure out how to draw feet standing normally). But luckily for those of you with longer artistic attention spans, the Brooklyn Art Library is seeking submissions for its massive sketchbook collection.
Already home to the world’s largest collection of sketchbooks—more than 50,000 strong—the Sketchbook Project—celebrating its 15th anniversary this year—is selling blank books ($30 for a standard book, $65 for a digitized one) to would-be contributors, who then have eight months to fill them in however they see fit and send them back. According to Smithsonian Magazine, submissions will be accepted and added to the collection unless the “include something extremely offensive, possibly cause damage to other books in the collection, or contain something unsanitary.”
Sketchbooks that meet the (extremely reasonable) requirements will be added to the collection at the Brooklyn Art Library.
This seems like a really cool way to spend some of the remained of quarantine, both to contribute to a cool project and for the bragging rights. (“My art is in an art library” has a nice ring to it, no?)
You can also peruse the digitized collection here.
[via Smithsonian Magazine]