Keeping a Visual Diary

When a design idea strikes, do you quickly jot it down on whatever is handy? A paper serviette if you are in a restaurant? On the back of an envelope or other scrap of paper?

And then what happens to these flashes of inspiration? Can't remember where you put them? Or even why you took the time to write them down? I think most quilt artists would agree that they have tucked away somewhere, pictures or drawings of a truly great idea, and either don't know where they put it, or can't remember why it appealed at the time.

Even if your ideas are scraps, they can be a source to 'jumpstart' a new piece.

How can I make these bits of paper more useful and findable?

A good way is to keep them all in one place. A dear friend has been encouraging me to record all my ideas into a permanent record, instead of in manila file folders full of what I call 'cartoons' for my quilt designs. She quoted from another friend, "Are you the back of an envelope person?"

These manila folders are not kept in any order, and scrabbling around in them is not always productive, even if I enjoy looking at the things inside. I remember saying to one of my daughters very early in my career when a competition brochure arrived, "I wish I could design a quilt like that." She said "You already have. It's in your cartoons."

In my studio there is a large box labelled 'experiments'. For some of these I remember why I tried out the technique, while some I have no idea what they were about. If I had recorded this information, how much more useful would my experiments box be?

So should you get a huge filing cabinet and set it up to hold alphabetical files for all your design ideas? Not at all. This is where a visual diary comes into play.

What is a visual diary?

It can be physically as simple as an exercise book, or a specially produced book which you can buy from any good stationers or art supply shop. The ides is not to categorise the ideas, as you would in a filing system, but to just record the reasons you chose to draw, snip out or jot down an idea.

You glue the scraps of paper into the pages, but here's the difference between a simple scrapbook and a visual diary: You also write quick notes about what inspires you about these snippets, then when you peruse the journal, you know why you chose that particular item as inspiration. They do not have be balanced artistically, or arranged in any order on the page, you simply add to them as you want, even adding more notes as something else strikes you later on.

One by-product of keeping these journals is that you can get very side-tracked as you look back through them!

What do these journals look like?

From quite literally bits of paper stuck into a notebook to wonderful expressions of the artist's philosophy.

Here is a wonderful example of one of these journals: http://www.nirm.co.uk/visualdiary.htm

And here's a picture of a page from one of my friend's diaries and a link to the resulting work: http://loopylace.com/anniescrazyworld/?p=470

So these diaries are artistic finished products?

Not necessarily. Those kinds of journals are studio journals, usually about a specific series or a single work, and which accompanies the pieces as part of, or in addition to, an exhibit of those works. Sharyn Hall had an exhibition at Brisbane City Hall in the late 1980s and she had produced a book about the processes she went through to make the quilts, so that was included in the exhibit.

The concept of visual diaries, while they can become quite artistically pleasurable in their own right, is that they can be 'rough and ready' so that not too much of your valuable creative time is spent on producing the diary, and not on producing quilts. They are meant to be used as a record of the inspirations that come to you in your everyday doings.

How much time then is needed to make the diary a useful tool?

As much as you want. If you want to make it part of your studio routine, then set aside a time weekly for keeping the journal up to date. It works better for me as a more spontaneous task, just entering things when inspiration comes.

Have fun!