Quarantine Diaries

Spring semester 2020 I was teaching a “sketchbook habit” course to art and design students at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, when everything changed and all classes moved to online. The sketchbook course was designed to support creative exploration in a non-judgmental way with students working independently to identify their own artistic idiosyncrasies and interests. They continued, drawing daily in their sketchbooks, responding to a variety of prompts or striking out on their own, regularly submitting images to an online discussion. Some used the sketchbook practice to record daily emotional responses, document a view, inventory household objects, lose themselves in pattern making, learn how to draw cartoon characters, perfect a watercolor technique, or experiment using the non-dominant hand. Some imagined escaping to outer space or the ocean. Many found keeping a sketchbook to be a source of comfort. The Quarantine Diaries exhibition is a selection of their work. In the midst of the coronavirus, quarantine, Covid-19, and associated uncertainties about the future, the exhibition is a hopeful tribute to the creativity, persistence, and resilience of these young adults and to the power and importance of their art.

Thank you!

Skyler Kling