ENGL 25
Artists' and Writers' Notebooks
Winter 2025
Class Details
Artists, writers and thinkers have long kept notebooks as storehouses of ideas and spaces for experimentation. The most famous, perhaps, belong to Leonardo da Vinci but Frida Kahlo, Jack Whitten, Janice Lowry, Turner, Cezanne, Haring, Newton, Leibniz and others left us books of sketches, lists, calculations, collages and coffee stains within which we might trace the patterns of their days, the development of their ideas, and occasionally the phone numbers of their acquaintances. These archives offer a window into a moment in the thinker’s life. In this studio seminar, we will visit Williams Library’s Special Collections to delve into the sketchbooks and scrapbooks of illustrators and the zines and small press creations that bridge the private sphere of the notebook and the public world of the printed text. Most importantly, we will create our own books. Class meetings will be divided between archive visits and workshops. Following each archive visit, we will gather in a studio setting to explore techniques that have been used by the creators of the books we examine. These workshops will include painting, poetry, Lino printing, and collage. Our goal is to discover the modes in which we each, individually, communicate best on the page and then to use that mode to keep a journal of the winter study experience. Part of this practice is about being present, about recording experiences as they happen, in the voice of the person you are in that moment. Part of it is to build your own personal archive. The project and product of this seminar will be the art- or note- book you create. The work will take place both in the seminar space where you will engage in hands-on archival research and practical experimentation, and also outside the classroom where you will work independently to capture your winter study experience for future reflection. Syllabus available via email larameintjes(at)Berkeley.edu
The Class:
Format: studio
Limit: 10
Expected: NA
Class#: 1318
Grading: pass/fail only
Limit: 10
Expected: NA
Class#: 1318
Grading: pass/fail only
Requirements/Evaluation:
Creative project(s); Other
Prerequisites:
none
Enrollment Preferences:
first-years and sophomores
Unit Notes:
Lara Meintjes '22 is a PhD student in English at UC Berkeley, working at the intersection of lyric poetry and visual art, and an artist whose recent collaborations include brands such as Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters.
Materials/Lab Fee:
$245
Attributes:
EXPE Experiential Education Courses
SLFX Winter Study Self-Expression
SLFX Winter Study Self-Expression
Class Grid
Updated 10:54 pm
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HEADERS
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ENGL 25 - 01 (W) STU Artists' and Writers' Notebook
ENGL 25 - 01 (W) STU Artists' and Writers' NotebookLara Lee MeintjesTR 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Jewish Religious Center1318ClosedNone