make mine a double

I was among the 28,000—yes, you read that right—who signed up to take part in Project Sketchbook, a national creative effort sponsored by the Art House Co-op in Brooklyn. I spent the winter break working on mine, with the theme “Make Mine a Double.” At first, I was intending to play on the cocktail-related meaning of that saying. Then I decided to do spreads that were two takes on my dearly departed sister, mother, and father.

Over the weeks I was letting my ideas marinate, I’d been jotting down visual vignettes of my family members: how my Dad had a huge sweet tooth, my sister a fixation on shoes, my Mom a love of dressing up and wearing fancy costume jewelry.

When my father died last spring, I acquired a cache of old family photos, and some of them inspired my spreads: Dad at Bethlehem Steel Plant, Dad holding my hand in front of a big shoe, Mom in what looks like a hat made of white feathers.

From these inspirations, I used markers, colored pencils, collage, and image transfers to take a trip down Memory Lane. In the bargain, I learned to work with media I had been unfamiliar with, and to let go and plunge into the journaling process.

You can see the images, with detailed captions, at my Flickr photostream. Find out more about the Art House Co-op here.