The Written Word

Handwritten words on paper can soothe us in unknowingly palpable ways. In the turning of the pen in hand and the nib on paper, buried thoughts are given time to unfurl and reveal themselves. Long after the letter or note is written, we can go back in time to feel the paper again, see the ink and how it lays on the paper, observe the emotional cues revealed in the turns of the pen before it was important that we remember. It’s as if the handwritten word knows we will eventually return to uncover its clues.

I’m a participant in The Sketchbook Project: a traveling library of artist’s sketchbooks. My submission (postmark deadline today!) is one of a hundred in the project entitled “Verse on Paper Project.” There are so many projects right here. This one motivated me because of the power of the written word on paper. During the 14+ years that my mother succumbed to Alzheimer’s, I often jotted down her thoughts and my own. I returned to these saved words for this project, some written in her own hand, and in rewriting the thoughts, and shuffling them around to arrange them, it brought me an unexpected understanding of those confusing years. I hope these words might help others to unravel familiar tangles.

“Join the tour. It’s like a library, but with sketchbooks.” Art House is an independent Brooklyn-based company that organizes global, collaborative art projects. It began in 2006 in Atlanta, GA and moved to New York City in 2009. This small organization has grown into a worldwide community of more than 60,000 artists. Join Art House to “nurture community-supported art projects that harness the power of the virtual world to share inspiration in the real world.”