An inanimate object which I hold very close to my heart is my sketchbook. Though I have had dozens throughout my life, this one has stayed with me through some particularly impactful times. I have used this sketchbook on and off since winter 2020. The contents include sketches from the following classes: Basic Ceramics, Design:Form, Intermediate Painting, and Basic Sculpture. The contents are not my finest work. This sketchbook just always seems to be laying around whenever I need to jot down a note or quickly sketch out an idea. This is why I have nicknamed it “Brainstormer”

The binding of the book is made of spiraled black wire. It is a decently large sized sketchbook, just a little too big to carry around all the time, so I rarely bring it anywhere in my backpack. It lives at the SUNY New Paltz Ceramic Studio. The front at one point had the dimensions, and number of pages written clearly on the front. This information has since gone missing from the front. It was either ripped off, or possibly nibbled by my roommate’s late rabbit, Lewis. As this information is no longer readily available to me, I measured the dimensions. “Brainstormer” is a 12×10 inch sketchbook–slightly bigger than printer paper. It contains 160 sheets of paper.

The cover is a dark forest green color. The material is thicker than paper, yet thinner than cardboard. In the places where the face of the sketchbook has torn, the white underside curls upward. A collage of fabric is glued to the front, but forest green color still shows through quite clearly. I did this sometime in 2020 when a fabric project was underway. The top is adorned with a horizontal panel about eight inches long of a thin silk flower-patterned fabric. There is evidence of ripping rather than cutting on the top edge. It leaves the fibers exposed, creating a hair-like appearance. This ripping is evident throughout most fabrics that appear on the cover. Directly to the right there is a smaller, two inch long, vertical piece of orange and white fabric. slightly overlapping it is a horizontal ten inch teal and purple paisley patterned piece of fabric which is more torn than any of the others. a thin band of purple lace runs through the middle horizontally across the entire length of the teal piece. Underneath, in the center of the sketchbook is the light blue remains of a very thin piece of fabric, which appears to have some type of language written on it. The center of this light blue piece is overlapped by another horizontal 2 inch piece of the orange and white fabric. directly beneath is a horizontal piece of orange ribbon, stretch about four inches across. to the left of this blue/orange assemblage in the middle, a piece of the bare sketchbook is exposed, showing a drawing of a human skull. To the left is a vertical piece of light pink lace stretching 5 inches. Layered on top, slightly to the right is another piece of the first fabric I described, vertically positioned and stretching 4 inches. It does not reach the top of the pink lace. bisecting this piece of fabric is another piece which is yellow, very translucent, and has a hint of orange lines splitting like veins. Pink and yellow fabric scraps frame this translucent piece on the right top and bottom corners. Another thin band of purple lace creates a T near the middle of the sketchbook, and corners a square piece of light brown burlap which measures to be about 3.5×3.5 inches. I would consider the burlap section of this sketchbook cover to be the focal point. A cutout piece of cotton fabric bestows the image of a human eyeball, centered precisely in the middle of the burlap. The eye is brown and looking downward to the right. Directly underneath this is a dark green ribbon, stretching horizontally across the entire bottom of the sketchbook, and overlapped by a 7 inch long piece of pink lace. Attached to the lace is a single half-inch loop, which is the same color pink. Finally, a slightly deeper light pink fabric scrap, with dark pink edges is horizontal, and resting in the bottom middle, about 4 inches in length. All fabric is secured with glue, evidently so because the glue is visible in certain spots.

The back is regular brown cardboard. It has not been collaged or tampered with. Though it does have a few streaks of white clay, and a small hint of something yellow.