Quarantine Journal

Quarantine Journal

The world changed suddenly in March 2020, and I was left with my daily work-in-the-house routine more unchanged than most, but I still found that I was really struggling to concentrate on the large, intense printmaking I had been working on. I always make sense of my life through art, so I decided that a quick, colorful, bold exploration of these new circumstances was called for. This is a record of that spring and summer when the world held still.

This was the end of my first Quarantine Journal. For a little context, I decided to write inside the back end paper and talk a little about why I started this journal as such a cohesive whole. Usually my sketchbooks are much more of a hodgepodge. Except for specific trip journals, I haven't had any sketchbooks that are such an ongoing narration. That page is at right. A few days later I got going again on a second journal, since I've been enjoying this so much.

At this point the Quarantine Journal changes a bit. I had planned to just stay home all year, given the pandemic, but my part time partner lives in Washington State, and I hadn't seen him since just after the holidays. Flying was out of the question for me, and I realized the only way I would feel safe traveling was with my own little bubble -- all my food, a place to sleep, and a bathroom. So I took a deep breath, drove 2500 miles solo (with Mr. Darcy for company, though!), and made it out to Washington. I was actually more socially distant traveling than I was managing in Memphis -- too many runners were coming right up on top of me with no warning in the park. No one got anywhere near me in six days, except to wave and say hello. I touched gas pump handles, water spigots, and the plug ins for the camper each night at different state parks. That was it. It felt very safe, and I'm grateful I came. If I'd waited for fall, there would be snow on the mountains in between us. Plus it gets 10 year old Mr. Darcy out of the worst of the Memphis heat for a couple of months. So below begins the journey and the sojourn in Concrete, WA, once I got there.

I recently got a Sailor fude fountain pen after seeing some other artists I admire using them. It's a bent nib pen where you can get widely varied lines, from thin to thick. I got back out my smaller, more traditional sketchbook and have been carrying it on my walks a lot of days. I'm also trying to keep it handy in the evenings, so you can see that there are lots of sketches of my main muse Mr. Darcy. These sketches aren't part of the intentional Quarantine Journal, which is a bigger book, but they are part of the record of this time. And some of them are the models for the more finished, colored sketches in the QJ above. If I come home with a sketch of a turtle or owl or heron's nest, I often use these black and white sketches as a guide for the journal pages, perhaps along with a photo I took for color.