I snapped the photo below in the shop at the Aldrich Museum about 2 years ago and then forgot all about it til I was trying to organize my unwieldy photo archives. You can see why the photo and the book caught my eye, with that lovely pile of notebooks and sketchbooks on the cover!

The book is about the artist Mark Dion‘s works on paper: Mark Dion: Journals, Photographs, Souvenirs and Trophies. I can’t remember if I saw his work at the museum that day, but I’m sure I didn’t see any sketchbooks on display or I would have taken photos of those too!

It’s probably hard to see in the photo, but the spines of some of the notebooks seem to indicate they were journals kept during travels to Mexico, Nicaragua, Borneo, Brazil and Guyana.

I did snap a couple of pictures of the interior of the book. Many of the pages seemed to be from notebooks full of writing, rather than sketchbooks. But I’m not surprised, as Dion’s work is more conceptual. I think I’ve seen some of his work in other museums, and a lot of it seems to involve collections of artifacts. I tend to enjoy artworks like this, as they make me feel like I’m browsing really cool stuff in an antique store while also contemplating a work of art!

I wish I’d taken more photos of the interior pages. I didn’t buy the book as the $100 price tag at the museum seemed quite steep for such a slim paperback book, but it looks like it’s only $50 for a used copy on Amazon as of this writing. Check out my other Amazon lists of Books About Notebooks, Sketchbooks, Journaling and Stationery and Artists’ Facsimile Sketchbooks too.