The lockdown sketchbook started at the beginning of the COVID pandemic.  Typically my sketchbooks are my most prized possessions, they catalog my life and I use them to transport myself back to the moment.  However I chose to explore some of the darker feelings about processing this time in my life.  Looking around my home I began to find narratives in small moments and objects I’d identify with -- the gesture of exhaustion in a sparkle unicorn or defeat in a leftover crust of pizza.

I ripped the labels off my grocery order and pasted it to most of the pages inside each it read: GIVES 8/9, etc.  At the time my feeling of overwhelm, as I had been pushing myself beyond what I was capable of. The “Gives” labels and this sketchbook gave me a way to express some of the more difficult moments in our experience in quarantine. 

When my sons see this book, I hope they don’t remember the fear and anxiety surrounding this pandemic -- I hope they remember the moments in between, the laughter and love the backyard birthday parties despite the restrictions. I hope they know just how much I love them.  That I would give them all that I possibly can.