Brooklyn Art Library

28 Frost St, Brooklyn, NY 11211, USA

The Sketchbook Project lives within the Brooklyn Art Library, filling their entire left wall from floor to ceiling. Yes, leave it to a place as cool as Brooklyn to have an art library. Anyway, my friend and I stumbled onto this fascinating place last fall. In short, the way this incredible thing works is this: people from around the entire globe pick a topic then send in a small paperback Moleskin notebook that they fill with their view of this particular topic. After procuring your own Library Card, you are free to choose a topic and an art librarian chooses 6 or so sketchbooks and you are free to sit down and see very personal, often moving, and always interesting one-of-a-kind artwork from around the planet. Since every library card and sketchbook have a barcode, you can check in to see who all has read your sketchbook. Pretty amazing concept, isn’t it? Such an incredible way to connect with other people in this world via something so tangible--something not on the computer, and not hanging on a museum wall. We spent hours in here. Here’s the address so you can see for yourself! 103A N. 3rd St., Brooklyn, NY 11211 (Catch! Unlikely Art entry!)

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The Sketchbook Project: Art from around the world

The Sketchbook Project lives within the Brooklyn Art Library, filling their entire left wall from floor to ceiling. Yes, leave it to a place as cool as Brooklyn to have an art library. Anyway, my friend and I stumbled onto this fascinating place last fall. In short, the way this incredible thing works is this: people from around the entire globe pick a topic then send in a small paperback Moleskin notebook that they fill with their view of this particular topic. After procuring your own Library Card, you are free to choose a topic and an art librarian chooses 6 or so sketchbooks and you are free to sit down and see very personal, often moving, and always interesting one-of-a-kind artwork from around the planet. Since every library card and sketchbook have a barcode, you can check in to see who all has read your sketchbook. Pretty amazing concept, isn’t it? Such an incredible way to connect with other people in this world via something so tangible--something not on the computer, and not hanging on a museum wall. We spent hours in here. Here’s the address so you can see for yourself! 103A N. 3rd St., Brooklyn, NY 11211 (Catch! Unlikely Art entry!)

Brooklyn-Style Sketchbooks at the Brooklyn Art Library

The Brooklyn Art Library holds an annual Sketchbook Project where budding artists from around the world submit their art. Participants select a proscribed theme, buy a Moleskine, fill it with art, and send it back to the library. Each year the current Sketchbook Project travels from city to city and then returns to Brooklyn where the books are shelved. The Brooklyn Art Library is in the hip, funky Brooklyn enclave of Williamsburg, an area where craft whiskeys abound and repurposed old records exist as bowls. (Full disclosure: I only lasted two hours in Williamsburg. It was hot, my pants were too long, face too clean-shaven, head fedora-less. I felt like how a parent must feel while at Abercrombie & Fitch. I quickly retreated to the more forty-something comfortable confines of Manhattan.) The space is clean, chilled, well-lighted, industrial, and neatly organized. There is a large library card card catalogue that draws oohs and aahs from those of us who are old enough to have researched with index cards; those who are younger might wonder why there is an apothecary cabinet in a library. To check out a book you apply for a library card (10 seconds at a computer) and then select a book based on themes, location, artist name (on a computer, not using the card catalogue). A friendly librarian brings you the book you selected and then an additional random one. Then you can sit back and admire the exceptionally creative works of talented people all around the world.

Sketchbook Library

Browse thousands of one if a kind sketchbooks with the assistance of friendly staff. The Brooklyn Art Library is a great place to explore the pages carefully crafted by artists from all over the globe. Plan to stay at least an hour. Great for art lovers, romantics, and dreamers. Be sure to read the instructions at the front before pulling sketchbooks off the shelves.

Full of imagination

Amazing place! I love the idea of the sketch book. I bought one and hope can join the 2016 project~

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