On a recent trip to Japan I carved out one week to visit a few spaces I had dreamed of visiting for close to 10 years. Isamu Noguchi’s garden museum in Mure, Teshima Art Museum, and Chichu Gallery on Naoshima Island.
Each of these places do not permit photography - a rule I highly admire and diligently stick to as it has led to an open, ten year in the making, expectation-less experience of each gallery. At each of these places it is made very clear by the ushers that this is not allowed, so when sneaky photos pop up on Instagram, it taints my view on that profile entirely because it’s disrespectful to the staff, artists, architects and fellow visitors of the gallery.
What I did observe onsite were people with the sketchbooks, standing and drawing out features they adored. Like a join between a sculpture and its base. A tree behind a plinth. It invites close attention to detail and a slowness that a quick shutter can’t capture. It almost builds a relationship with the viewer and art piece.
Something about this act feels wonderfully personal. It is note taking just for them, not to capture a beautifully composed image, or to later show anybody. An often timed jotting down of a quality within a space.
Each day I would visit a new place and increasingly see people doing this. Regretting not bringing my own notepad each day, I tried to sketch these places from memory and the parts in which I was drawn to. I have included below and look, I’m no artist but I wanted to share the sentiment of bringing a sketchbook to the gallery or museum instead of (or as well as) your iPhone. Or to invite you to potentially try to recreate from memory a feature within a gallery that you were drawn to.
Please do not look below if you wish to avoid spoilers of these places but they’re also very abstract lines, no realism here.
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