Journals
Journals: An Introduction
I am an accidental journal keeper. This is a curious admission for someone whose visual journals have become a central feature of his life. In the mid-1970s I began to carry sketchbooks which I filled with thousands of drawings for the bronze and ceramic sculptures I hoped to make. In 1978 the drawings were accompanied by a few tentative words—mostly notes from lectures and seminars. By the time I completed a sabbatical in Cairo and Doha in the spring of 1982, my visual journals had acquired most of the characteristics that persist today. Images and words coexist in roughly equivalent portions—in this standoff, words will win for days at a time only to be overtaken by pages of images. There are notes on daily activities, plans for artworks I might make, images made for my own amusement and stimulation, drawings of autobiographical memories, research notes and diagrams, records of professional conferences, collaborative drawings with kids, collages of found images, and poems.
