I needed coffee beans. 

I mean, I have coffee beans, but I accidentally bought beans that were so darkly roasted that they damn near taste like ash. So…I needed coffee beans. I decided that on my Sunday, late afternoon errand-running trip I’d stop by Urban Agrarian and fix the situation. As I pulled up I saw this… 

It totally piqued my curiosity. After I finished up shopping and hugging my farmer, I beelined over to the black trailer. Two folks were inside and gave me the low down on The Sketchbook Project. It is a traveling library of artists’ sketchbooks. I created a library card and searched the catalog for a sketchbook to peruse. I chose a book by the criteria of where it was created: San Francisco. The system pulled a book from there along with a random selection.

These books are born as blanks and anyone can purchase them. Then, the artist fills the pages. Or tears the pages. Or cuts. Or glues. or sews. Lots of the books are deconstructed and reassembled. There are no rules other than the books have to be mailed to The Sketchbook Project by the deadline so they can be catalogued and prepared for one of the national tours. For a year the current edition of books tour the country in these mobile pop-up libraries. At the end of the year, the books go back to the mothership, the Brooklyn Art Library. Oklahoma City was an unplanned stop due to a cancellation in Boulder, CO.

I was a teensy bit heartbroken that  I discovered them at 4:30 and they were closing shop at 5:00. But I did my best and got through about 8 books. 

Daily miracles, people. Daily miracles.