Crowdsourcing is a big deal these days: maybe you crowdsource funds for your chick flick/vampire thriller movie, or you get a bunch of people to define words like “cutty” and “bropocalypse.” What about crowdsourcing art?
A sketchbook from the Project’s massive collection
That’s exactly what the Sketchbook Project does. The idea is simple: an artist (or heck, not an artist!) pays a small fee to be sent a blank 32 page sketchbook. She fills it up up with writing, collages, paintings, photography, comics, lyrics, drawings… anything she can think of. Then she sends it back to the Project. Currently the Project has a collection of 27,648 sketchbooks (donated from 11,575 cities worldwide), which they house in three libraries (“because three libraries are better than one”): their flagship Brooklyn Art Library in New York City, their digital library (artists have to pay a little more to be scanned into the mainframe, which can be accessed for free by anyone with an internet connection) and their Mobile Library… which is a lot like a food cart, but one that gives you sketchbooks instead of food.
“Dang,” you’re saying, “the Sketchbook Project sounds rad as heck. I wish I could see it!”
Well now’s your chance. The Project is parking their taco truck full of books at San Francisco Center for the Book July 26-28, and we wouldn’t be at all surprised if books from our friends and contributors are amongst the haul. If yours isn’t, why don’t you order yourself a sketchbook and get participatin’? I think I’m going to.
