Indiana Jones and My Own Personal Grail Diary

As a kid, my dad made sure I got the proper cinematic education.

One of my favourite movies was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. What fascinated me most about the movie was the Grail Diary that Henry Jones (played by Sean Connery), Indi's father, kept as a treasure map of sorts to the Holy Grail. I found the diary completely riveting with its diagrams drawn from ancient medieval texts, illustrations from visited places, and texts copied and pieced together from riddles and literature.

I've always been extremely interested in Art History, so when I had the opportunity to study art in Italy a few years ago, I was beyond thrilled. I spent 6 months in Tuscany, in a little town called Orvieto, living in a convent that was hundreds of years old with 3 nuns. Among the cobblestone streets lined with windows and baskets of flowers was a tiny little shop; I bought two pocket-sized books, and carried them with me to all the cities we would visit.

At the beginning of every sketchbook I start, on the very first page, I write, "Do Not Be Afraid"; it is a reminder to myself that this space is for reflection, experimentation, and making mistakes. It is to remind myself that I must continue to make work, even if I am afraid of making a mistake; that in doing so, I will have learned something I did not know before.

Sometimes the things I saw during my time abroad simply could not be put into words. When words lacked (as they often did), I often simply did mastercopies of what I saw. As I have written here, "Words can't make that; and that's why I love art."

One of the things I loved about Italy was all the script typography everywhere. I often documented key phrases and words etched out with beautiful script. The tag in this page is from the first bottle of wine my friends and I bought and enjoyed on our terraza (the terrace of the convent in which we stayed - we lived in the very same rooms that were once lived in by sisters hundreds of years ago) The gold stamp is a gold-leafed picture of the Orvietani Duomo that was in the center of town. The city was saved from bombing during WWII because of the value of the frescoes inside the Duomo, and because of the artwork, the city of Orvieto and its authentic history is still standing, much the same as it was hundreds of years ago.

During my time in Italy, we traveled to a different city every weekend as a class. These drawings are master-copied from ancient medieval hymnals with gorgeous illuminated manuscripts, hand-painted by monks. The peacock is a master copy from a lesser-known fresco in the Vatican, and the quote I found painted onto an anonymous tomb in another cathedral. The quote says, "I was once what you are now, and you will be as I am now,": a reminder of life's fleeting nature, but also of its sanctity.

Even now that I am living back in the States, I still keep visual diaries and sketchbooks (I think my sketchbooks over the last few years number in the 30's) of quotes I love, thoughts I want to remember, and things I see that influence my art, and my own personal perspective.

Do you keep a visual diary? 
Or journal? (come on now, if Sean Connery can call it a diary, then it's still totally cool)
If you do, I encourage you to share on your blog as I have done, and then comment here and link me (and others) to it! We'll call it "Diary Friday" lol.