Visual Journals 

Denver • Colorado

September 2 • October 1 • 2011

About Visual Journals . . .  

This is the second time that a form of visual/personal journals have been on display in the gallery’s Reading Room. It isn’t a typical genre for gallery display as the works are often personal projects, ongoing projects rather than finished works. And they are not usually for sale. Nonetheless, gallery visitors have flocked to the Reading Room during these exhibits. It pleases me that I can occassionally step outside the confines of retail gallery management and offer up these enticements. 

So, what is a Visual Journal? Any form of diary, art journals, travel journals, scrapbooking, annotated photo albums, sketchbooks, altered books, artists’ books, in short, any form that contains a visual record of some sort. Visual Journals come in all shapes and sizes, made from a broad range of materials. Although quite often created as one of a kind works, visual journals can be (re)produced in a limited edition or as a trade publication. Visual Journals often start as blank books, sketchbooks, altered books, scroll, used scrapbooks, antique photo albums or a travel atlas. Visual Journals can also be made from bits of fabric stitched together, collections of objects housed in a box, a wallet or vessel filled with notes, drawings and objects; dare I say that the sky is the limit? 

This genre is exciting for gallery visitors to examine, not only because it lets viewers indulge in a bit of voyeurism or live vicariously through the exploits of others, but also because so it is a form that really is available to anyone. Visual Journaling doesn’t require bookbinding skills, or that one be a visual artist or writer, although all three of those areas are often combined in a visual journal. The approach to engaging with experience by recording thoughts/images/photos is available to any who are willing to take a little bit of risk, and spend some time working up pages. 

 

Alicia Bailey, Director

Abecedarian Gallery