On SKETCHBOOKS
my experiences in 2024/25
In 2024 I responded to one of Gill Crozier’s sketchbooks, displayed behind glass in the Oswestry library. I thought that any sketchbook was like a pearl in the shell for me and for artists themselves, before coming out. I am a searcher and intrigued to discover the secrets behind any successful product.
I was curious about Father Christmas as a child. As a teenager I put a door into the roof of a model house I had made. In my filmmaking I intended to expose the truth behind injustices. The same urge I discovered in Edward Hopper’s paintings of people seen from the outside but standing lonesome inside. Hitchcock as well looked from the outside in.
Displaying Sketch books, looking through them, discovering the person and intentions in them: That I did with 10 others in March 2024. I really liked the process. Even though it was almost too much to take in everybody’s work and explanations.
I live from diary notes, scrapbooks, family albums and photo books. It was the creative side, outside school, that I had time to develop as a child. It is this discovery of independence that I was lucky to unwrap in later years.
I recognise in me a naive joy in the sketching done by children, as well when I work with them.
In a Cinema Workshop for Young People in the 80s in East London I encouraged teenagers to “come out”.
18 Scrapbooks are witness to it.
When looking behind any glass I feel the wish to open what I can’t see. I feel the same about pictures in galleries. Written words don’t satisfy my request. Essentials are the visuals and the three dimensional aspects that fascinate me.
And it is not only that.
There is a need beyond “art” appreciation, because I wish to be understood in conversations and wish to be regarded as an equal to others.
I don’t want to be a teacher, or a therapist or a successful “artist” but to be open to share with others the experience of creative work that is a part of all of us.
Grandchild Finlay drew this picture for me when he was 8 years old
FINLAY 8
I discovered a lot more drawings in a pad that he sketches in before going to sleep.
Looking at my photos of some of his drawings he explained :
Monster screams / mouth open /
they are characters / have a fortress /
a giant power ball + little bullet shots / a bullet shower / shooting down / thunder storm / big Ben sticks his brain out /
there is the ring + knife / the portal was too late to overcome the storm /
they are sharing power in the fortress that they want to make /
a claw + stab into the fish and kill it / puff puff /
big car lamborghini / corruption monster / horror movie /
nice little creature / good wizard traps them / that is a human dragon mixed with horns /
it kills the human again / …
Our son BOB was born 22 April 1978. 1980
I made an Album of our year with him when he was 2.
A mayor part of my collections are his drawings in a train with me on a day long journey to Italy.
My son with me in 1982
Our daughter Louise was born 20 February 1984.
She was the sole in our newly refurbished war damaged house in Bethnal Green. I felt very happy and fulfilled then. These sketches are witness of that and collected in my KINNY POO book.
In 2024/25 Jo sat in classes with primary school children in Oswestry. She asked them to draw themselves and other people they know with colourful pens. The children were four or five years old. They ‘convincingly’ explained who was who.
In March 25 I went to the Oswestry Library and talked to the person in charge, explaining my thinking of ‘Table Events’, to invite people to bring their sketchbooks and scribbles for a conversation with me and to show, listen and talk about it. She responded well and offered two sofas on Monday mornings 10 to 12 am. Later she called these meetings Sketchbook Socials.
Grandchild Ella 6, drew this picture during an outing to Llangollen showing her eating Fish and Chips outside a cottage with such special roof and windows.
The spot in the library I was able to use.
I also asked Anthony, who runs the Willow Gallery in Oswestry, if I could sit between the exhibits and share my Sketchbooks with people who bring theirs. He had no objections. I was welcome and set myself up like a street artist who has nothing to sell. And although I felt uncertain and displaced, nobody minded. I kept some of my precious stuff in a suitcase when I was not in, but in March/April regularly from Tuesday to Saturday 2pm to 4pm I sat between my displays waiting for people to join in and to take the chair next to me.
The spot in the library I was able to use.
I introduced myself with a painting of my brother from 1968 and added a booklet of my sketches. I had never exhibited this piece before but now valued especially the sketches !
I met Neill before. His charcoal drawings reminded me of Munch in the 1920s and on an exhibition in the Portrait Gallery
Just then I went to an exhibition in the National Portrait Gallery in London with sketches by MUNCH of himself from the 1920s
People who joined me in the gallery spent up to 2 hours with me ! I was astonished that there were only a few overlaps with others coming. And that was fruitful as well.
The library on Monday mornings led me to meet a group that widened my view and understanding of those who need this place with its many local activities on offer. The atmosphere was inviting, warm and welcoming for everybody who needed a place to communicate and to recharge. I responded to that.
From early March to mid April I had 9 people joining me in the library and 20 in the gallery.
The sketchbook initiative was a success in both places and an eye opener for me.
I am grateful to Gill Crozier for bringing a book to one of my sessions:
‘Leonardo’s Notebooks’, covering the work of this great artist and inventor in the Renaissance, who resonates and still inspires us now.
Just then I went to an exhibition in the National Portrait Gallery in London with sketches by MUNCH of himself from the 1920s
I could have gone on, but I had to stop. I suddenly felt the need for more time on my own.
We are all people in different developments. On the whole we are judged on achievements but not on our preparations before the race to success. I am interested in our starting points and in our efforts not to give up, but to always start from scratch again.
I am sorry to bring this up, but it is printed on my mind :
We just celebrated in BRITAIN the end of the war in 1945. Being German but brought up in Silesia, the land of my ancestors that became part of Poland after May the 8th in 1945. I see the VICTORY parades in Europe and Russia from a different perspective. I am living not that far from Coventry that was destroyed by the Germans in December 1944, the month of my 4th birthday. As revenge, under the command of Marshal Harris, Britain firebombed Dresden where 7 family members and I were a week before the complete destruction. We were on our escape from the Russian army. After that we lived as refugees in the West but had to start from scratch again in every way. “Our land” was caught in between the fighting enemies and the peace arrangements. I identify with any work on peaceful solutions.
WILF