World’s largest sketchbook collection moves to St. Petersburg
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - After nearly 15 years in New York, the world’s largest collection of sketchbooks has moved to St. Petersburg.
The Sketchbook Project is a collection of tens of thousands of sketchbooks that hold everything from people’s personal stories to drawings to things they just wanted to get off their chest.
"When the project started it was very straightforward- they would mail the book to people and they would mail it back, but around 2009 they had the idea to create a library theme," explained Steven Peterman, founder of the Sketchbook Project. "There’s a huge sketchbook fan club and people want to do work in there. So, people really want to share their stories and secrets in this format. I think we thought we would have 10,000 books and have this little collection we couldn’t do a lot with and here we are with 40,000 books."
People from all over the world have submitted sketchbooks.
"We live in a world where you can share things and 10,000 people can see it instantly, but it’s a very indirect connection and I think this is a very special connection," Peterman stated. "I think maybe 20-30 people have flipped through each of these books and can sit there and have this like moment with the artists."
Peterman says a lot of times you can tell what is going on in the world by what the sketchbooks reflect within the pages.
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"Recently, within the past two years, we’ve gotten a lot of books about mental health and what’s going on in the world. Previous, the first few years it was more fun in a sense. Like, we had a lot of like artwork and doodles and sketches, so it’s kind of evolved over the 15-year period.
Peterman stressed that it’s a library for everyone.
"We have first-time artists, professional artists and everyone in between. We just want people to feel inspired and feel excited about what they’re looking at," he said.
The Sketchbook Project will be on display at the Factory in St. Petersburg located at 2622 Fairfield Ave. S. Click here for more information.