Sorting out the Sketchbooks for my Exhibition

Now my latest picture book is finished, I have been spending most of my studio time organising my artist-in-residence exhibition for the end of July. What seemed ages away, is suddenly imminent and there is still SO much to be done. I am getting some help from the Morgan Centre, but most of it is things which only I can do.

At least now I have a bit of spare time to get on with it. I have been back to the gallery and re-measured all the space, then worked out exactly how much room I have and how best to lay everything out. The upshot is that I have space to exhibit 27 of the 40 plus sketchbooks I've created. The task of choosing which 27 was proving too daunting though - where to begin? So John and I laid them out on the dining room table, 3 at a time, and went through the lot together, creating in, out and maybe piles.

Some were in because they were part of specific projects, like the Dormant Things research I have been doing a fair bit of work on, the Sythesised Menthol project in the 3 images above, or the Dementia Carers Research below:

Then there were those which were just a bit different, like the book I filled over a few weeks, following the progress of the team of builders right outside the door to our building:

Some of them got really interested and I got quite chummy with this gang of workers:

The tricky ones were the books filled with meetings, seminars and lectures. They are all different, when you look at the text, and all had some lovely work I am very proud of, but because they are essentially people sitting about in rooms, they could look a bit samey. This put them top of the list when it came to culling. Very hard.

Reluctantly, I let some go, knowing that at least I have the projections on the far wall, where I can show any sections I don't want to go unseen. Plus we have 5 or 6 HUGE boards, where I can feature much-enlarged details. I might use some to show sketches from books which didn't make the grade, like these Chinese students, who were trying out their graduation gowns on a sunny afternoon:

These three piles are the final selection:

My Precioussss.....