On Journaling: The Museum Sketchbook

This is not a typical writing prompt. Usually, our prompts allow you to run with an idea for one evening of focused writing. This prompt is not that. Rather, this is a writing strategy that I love a great deal and encourage you to implement in your own life.

Fig 1: The Sagrada Familia and the Joan Miro Foundation, Barcelona

The museum sketchbook was born of the intersection between my habit of carrying around a small notebook or sketchbook of some sort with me everywhere I go, and my love of visiting museums. My sketchbook is falling apart, but I’m still proud of the little guy. Proud enough at least to share some of its pages with you.

Fig 2: The Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The first benefit of keeping a museum sketchbook is the way it improves the museum-going experience. Were you to take a camera into a museum, you would be able to easily snap photographs of every work you find even mildly interesting. A sketch, on the other hand, requires your time and attention, and in that way, carrying a sketchbook with the intention of taking drawings and notes out of the museum forces you to be more selective about what you look at.

Fig 3: The Old National Gallery, Altes, and Nues Museums, Berlin

When you are forced to look at works of art, or artifacts, or scientific curio for longer, you begin noticing details that you may have missed otherwise. Rather than seeing as many exhibits as possible and then leaving the museum after one hour, you immerse yourself in those exhibits that caught your attention and, after a full day of sketching, the staff of the Rijksmuseum still has to drag you out at closing time.

Fig 4: National Gallery, Prague

The second benefit of this practice is the effect it has on your memory. Writers, particularly writers of nonfiction, rely on their memories a great deal. An evocative memory can spin into a powerful story, and I have found there are few things as good at evoking memories as my own drawings.

Fig 5: St Stephen’s Basilica, Budapest; the Albertina, Vienna; and the Rodin Museum, Paris

So how does one go about making and keeping a museum sketchbook? Surprisingly, living close to a museum or going to museums frequently is not a requirement. The drawings included here were drawn over the course of the last two years. Granted, they were two years of extensive travel, but the point I’d like to make is this isn’t a quick project. A museum sketchbook is something you carry around with you every time you go to a museum over a period of years and at the end of that period you may only have a few pages filled. Yet, that is enough to have prompted you look at beautiful things carefully and to serve as a evoker of memories.

Fig 6: Samsung Museum, Seoul

            A journal can serve as a wonderful wealth of inspiration, but naturally you have to make it yours. As Rukmini said in her post onjournaling, this is private writing, so adjust the premise to your liking. Perhaps you hate museums, or have no interest in drawing. Never fear. Think about where you like to go regularly. Where are places that you like to go alone, and feel perfectly content to spend all day in? Cousins of the museum sketchbook include the naturalist’s notebook for a lover of the outdoors, the pocket portrait gallery for the people-watcher, and the gym log for your local ironmonger.

Fig 7: National Gallery, Washington, D.C.

Fig 8: MoMA, New York City

So, my prompt for you is this: find, salvage, make or (god forbid) buy a slim notebook, the kind you could easily carry around with you. Put a pencil in your pocket and spend some time alone in a place you love. Immerse yourself in the things that interest you. Really immerse yourself. Observe every detail and fill the sketchbook with drawings and thoughts and observations. Stand in the way of tourists. Bother the museum guards. Do this for years. Develop a reputation.

            And after a while, you will have a valuable artifact. Go forth and explore!