I spoke in the first birthday post about my fear of a paper shortage in the first weeks of the lockdown; this made me more careful with my notebooks.
I usually always have an in progress notebook that follows me everywhere, and that I replace as soon as it is completed. These notebooks have a huge importance in my practice and actually represent the bigger part of my production; they contain sometimes notes and sketches for other projects, but they are above all an ongoing project by themselves (I will make a long post about my special relation to them one day).
Below is an example from the second series of these notebooks; each series represents a fresh start with a completely new format – I am today working on the fifth series that comes in accordion (follow the youtube link to find more info on this particular notebook, the music used in the video, etc.)
I also have several other notebooks dedicated to specific projects lying around in my studio. They are mostly meant to record ideas and notes on the said projects, and I usually never draw in them, unless it is a sketch of an idea. A month after the beginning of the lockdown, I started feeling the need for a notebook dedicated to the Corona Diaries, but since I couldn’t bare the idea of wasting paper, I used half of another one that was already in use for my graphic novel Antoine.
On top of those notebooks, I usually always have in my pocket a small emergency notebook; it is a sort of hybrid notebook that I use to replace any of the two other kinds mentioned above, whenever I have nothing else with me (yes, I always have a pen in my pocket too). In end of April 2020, I started a new one of those portable notebooks that accompanied me in all my outings (to the supermarket and the park exclusively). This notebook became quickly a diary in itself where I wrote many messages to myself, and after a couple of weeks of use I took a red pen and titled it aptly Corona to go (2020).
I am talking about all this today because this particular notebook contains a lot of insights on my state of mind during the spring 2020 lockdown and the summer that followed, and I would like to share them as is. I usually don’t do that, especially that many of these notes are very personal and may sound childish or pretentious. Normally I either transform them into drawings or leave them buried in their respective notebooks, but for once I feel they are quite relevant and show better than anything else what I was thinking and why I was less and less interested in transforming them in possible drawings. Going through them again now, I can see how much I was lost back then (and probably still am) without being able to face this feeling. Making as if everything is OK has always been my way of dealing with things; I know this is not the best solution, but I probably like this romantic idea of keeping everything inside to get it out later, on the paper, in the music or in any other form.
The first page of this notebook was written on the grass of the Tiergarten (English translation below the image).
empty your head. Become unemployed. Do not produce anything anymore.
Take time. Do not put rules to yourself anymore. Live from day to day. Are you capable?
Stop annotating the passing time. Just for a moment.
Below are few other excerpts from the same notebook. I chose the ones that seem relevant to this post. However, it is good to mention that I frequently have dark thoughts like the ones shown below, and that they are not due to a specific situation. It is rather the fact of writing down a lot of these thoughts that is a novelty. I somehow felt less guilty of not producing anything, as if I was preparing something to be produced in the future. Was I subconsciously thinking of now?
Why doing nothing is so difficult? Each day is as unique as the others To be born and to die are the only two things one cannot repeat Except breathing, getting old is the only thing we never stop doing since the moment we are born When I draw, I am not drawing something, but rather the moment when I am drawing this thing (The second sentence found its way into one of the last drawings of the first period of these diaries) My life, like all the others, is ending (this special note was to celebrate my 45th birthday!) You need to change. Everything. All the time. Now more than ever. Stop having. Wanting to have. Wanting to keep. Wanting to transmit. Accept to lose.