From The Black Books (2024)

What are the Black Books? The Black Books are 8.5" X 11 " softcover Moleskin books that come 3 to a pack. I've been working on & in them for about 20 years now.  The main point for me is to have no preconception about what I will do on a given page. Most of the time, working in them feels like a jam session a musician would have. And, like all my art, (except my photography) I start somewhere and end up somewhere else entirely.  Unsuccessful pages are sometimes ripped out entirely or made to work with other pages that are more resolved. Everything is up for grabs - pen & ink, marker, coloured pencils, crayons, block prints, finger smears, watercolour, photographs, Christmas and Birthday wrapping paper, envelopes, postmarks, tape, CD stickers, business cards, things found on my walks, sticks, coins...I cross reference with my "plein air" sketch books for points of departure. Themes come and go.  I don't work in them every day. Months will go without me even looking at them, then I'll work in them obsessively for days or until I finish a volume. 

I've been working in books since 1980 when I started School of Visual Arts in NYC  -  I still have most of them. For some reason the sketchbook or art journal has always felt like my most important art form. I've always loved the feel of a sketchbook. And the fact I could have it with me anywhere and everywhere. I've always felt I'm at my most honest when working in one of my books. Certainly, I'm at my most immediate. Sometimes you say it all in a sketchbook and anything after that feels flat.  I've also always thought it'd be great to have a show of one's books. Not the over-arty "Book as Art" bullshit that art institutions are so fond of - with lots of overworked, over-sanitized, precious, clever visual puns, posturing and virtuosity. No, I'd rather see the raw, immediate, rescued pages of one's creative process. That's where the goodies are. And they wouldn't be for sale...that is...unless someone begged for one.

I once saw one of Van Gogh's sketchbooks at a show at the Met in NYC in the early 80s.  It was delicate as opposed to his violent style of painting, in his books he had a light touch & was precise in detail. I went through stacks of Sally Michel Avery's sketch books when I worked for her in the late 80's - largely contour sketches with color notations. There were also the original Studying Hunger Journals that Bernadette Mayer let me take home for a few weeks in Autumn 1985 - they were in her own hand, in different colored inks and had some abstract drawings. The underground cartoonist R. Crumb was able to buy a castle in France with income generated from the sale of a small stack of his sketchbooks. And Patti Smith once showed pages of one of her sketchbooks on The Mike Douglas Show in the Winter of 1977 while somewhat immobile with a neck-brace (she'd fallen off a stage months before). There are occasional exhibitions of Jack Kerouac's notebooks which are small, pocket sized affairs written in pencil. I once saw a photo of him typing with small stacks of his notebooks all over his work table. And I heard the poet Ted Berrigan's journals were truly something to behold.  Books are cool!