Scratch and sniff

I’m in love with papers, specifically journals. I’ve kept a journal, on and off, since 1st grade. It started out as a nightly homework assignment that we handed to our teachers the next day – quite the opposite of how one typically uses a journal, a private diary. The fact that there was a daily reader kept the parameters of my entries rather factual, like I was a sailor keeping a record on his maiden voyage to an unknown land. Big feelings and secrets didn’t come into play until I was in middle school, accompanied by cutouts of magazine pictures, stickers, and hand drawn illustrations. Nobody was a better listener than these blank pages of my journal.

This is the cover of my newest journal from Jenni Bick, a store I stumbled upon on my last visit to Washington, D.C. You can see the outline of my finger tips and scratches starting to take shape on its cover. Inside, I’m collecting quotes and images I find pleasing to mull over, and enduring as sources of creative inspiration. When you flip through the pages, the most memorable thing about this journal is its smell – yes, the smell. Each journal or a book carries with it a history of its origin in its olfactory features: how the paper was processed, what binding holds the pages together, how much time was spent in the sun or the shades, etc.