Schetsboek met 43 bladen c. 1890 - 1922

This is a sketchbook with 43 pages by Johanna van de Kamer, a treasure chest of potential, dreams sketched out in anticipation. Looking at the cover, it’s this tactile thing, a pale rectangle that invites touch. The canvas is like skin, marked with faint smudges and shadows. You can almost smell the paper inside, feel the give of the spine. I love the simple utility of it - a binding, a support, a portable space where ideas begin to take shape. A sketchbook is a special place, a refuge, an incubator. We never see the inside but we can imagine all the things which might be in there, waiting to be realised. What I find so moving about sketchbooks is how they become a place for artists to play, to test out ideas, make mistakes, and begin again. Like the sketchbooks of Bonnard or the notebooks of Cy Twombly, this object embodies the spirit of experimentation and the beauty of the unfinished.