A note about journaling visual and written imagery

One of the things I love to do is talk to artists and writers about the sketchbooks and notebooks they keep. I find it fascinating, and without question, every journal I’ve come across is organized in a type of personal code that details the creative process. Artists tend to say sketchbook, and writers tend to say notebook, but I’m calling it a journal because I’ve never encountered a sketchbook without words or a notebook without drawn images (arrows and doodles count).

But more than that, a journal is understood as a documented response to our place in our mental and physical environment. there exists a doubleness between the image and the word that makes them codependent; after all, writing, drawing, and painting originate from mark-making. I draw a letter to form a word, an idea, an image, expressed by a world of association in each word. Its interchangeability between visual and written imagery, which you could substitute as the subconscious and conscious mind, makes journaling crucial to artistic and personal development. 

By its nature, a journal is unmade and unfinished, which keeps it explorative and the breeding ground of any creative project. I journal to explore possibilities about my novel writing by exploring what and how I think because I, too, am in the process of making, and my hand forms the words using the experience at my disposal. The materiality of spirit takes place by the act of writing, not typing, and each new thought widens the levels of forms at my disposal. Forms are associations; I can expand my storylines and change the story itself by writing into them. I can change my story by erasing undesirable events and mapping them into remote terrains inside a whole country of my own. 

This is just a quick blog this week as it’s half-term, and the house is full of teenagers, but more on journaling is coming up. As always, thanks so much for reading. Make sure to listen to my podcast, Sketchbook/Notebook, where I discuss my journal with Rachael Adams.

Happy writing, 

Gret x