Product Description

To artist-writer-naturalist Hannah Hinchman, the blank pages of a journal are a call to awaken the soul, to celebrate being alive in the world, to get to know both the wilderness of our inmost selves and the "unpredictable and potent" natural world. In the richly illustrated pages of this book, she unfolds a myriad of wonders --the pattern of a bee abdomen, varieties of ice forms and sky colors, the joys of a garden --and shows us how to capture them on the page. Hinchman's respect for the miracle of our five senses, and her passion for what they can tell us about the world, is contagious. "Start with a smell, like a crushed marigold leaf, the sea, coal smoke," she advises, and from such raw materials begin to "decant the stuff of life" into journal form, "where it remains fresh, still tasting of its source." Even for one who has no intention of journal-keeping, to delve into Hinchman's own work is to see with new eyes. A Trail Through Leaves is a true gift and inspiration, a treasure-box of ways to write, draw, and be alive to the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #289169 in Books
• Published on: 1999-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780393318852
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Library Journal
Artist and naturalist Hinchman, who has kept a journal since 1970, shares in this work her ideas about keeping a daily record of one's observations and experiences. Her advice, directed to "would-be naturalist/journal-keepers," focuses on the tangible details of the natural world, "moments of the ordinary-made-extraordinary by the simple act of choosing and isolating them." She emphasizes the value of adding drawings to a journal and includes many samples of her annotated sketches of plants, animals, and landscapes. Excerpts from her own writings are basically accounts of the minutiae of her surroundings in Wyoming's Northern Rockies. Although her excerpts lack real insight, her recommendations for observing the natural world more intensely are valuable. A potentially helpful purchase.?Ilse Heidmann, San Marcos, Tex.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
This is an important book, brilliantly produced. Its light will linger a long, long time. -- John R. Stilgoe, professor in the History of Landscape, Harvard University

[B]oth a rich work of performance art and a personal growth tool with many handles. -- Boston Globe

From the Author
How do you find the time to keep a journal?

At first it's hard to justify the time for such an apparently selfish activity. But the rewards are tangible. They tend to reflect back into daily life, adding a level of clarity and attention that affects everything from negotiating traffic to family conversation. The act of recording, even noting things to record later, amplifies wakefulness and curiosity, counteracts irritation and boredom, invites engagement, and begets energy. The act of recording fulfills a hunger, and the feeling of satisfaction it brings makes me want to do more of it. So I find the time. I decided early on that I wouldn't make the journal into a daily regime; otherwise it might become a duty. Sometimes I open it several times a day, sometimes not for a week. But now it's become a well-established habit, an immensely rewarding one I'd never want to forgo.

My first book (though it assumed that any journal-keeper would also be a lover of the woods and fields) emphasized the interior changes wrought by making a record of one's life. A whole life, with its dark turns and its apparently dull stretches. In it I attempted to make new converts to the joys of joining art and writing on blank pages, pointing towards the increase in "wakefulness" that is one of its chief rewards.

In this second book, I've allowed the scientist and naturalist a freer rein, and that seems to go well with my somewhat more mature point of view: I write less about interior shifts, and more about what's right in front of me, knowing better how well they mirror each other. I invite creatures, plants, objects, clouds, landscapes, and people into the pages in the form of words and pictures. Those moments of focused attention have an almost magical effect; they seem to coax out of concealment details, quirks, gestures that would remain hidden to the cursory glance.

When I teach workshops on the illuminated journal, I explain what I call a "scale of journals": On one end is the Informational journal, the true naturalist's field journal. It concentrates on the quantifiable and identifiable, gathering names, facts, and observations with an impartial thoroughness. It contains drawings, but they are meant to be explanatory. There is little room for the personal in this kind of journal, though I admire it for the valuable role it serves in adding to the body of knowledge. On the other end of the scale is the Reflective journal. It's purely personal, mostly concerned with human-generated culture, investigations of the psyche, relationships, responses to art and writing, dreams, memories-as in Anaïs Nin's diaries. The self is the subject rather than the world. The art in this journal might look more like William Blake's paintings.

In between the two poles are two other kinds of journals that have become more and more central to my interest. The first is the Investigative: It documents the outer world, but includes many unmeasurable and unnamed phenomena, like the effects of light, ways the seasons change, patterns and textures in nature. It goes outside the categories of the Informational journal and finds links between apparently dissimilar things. Thus it includes more of the person making it, because it's up to that person to invent new categories. Art in this journal would look more like what we find in Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks.

The other is the Resonant journal-so called because it acts as the place of interweaving between the person and the world. Curiosity extends both inward and outward: You are a naturalist on the trail of your own life, and you search for insights in the more-than-human world as well as the human. These two kinds of journals, as embodied in Goethe and Thoreau, seem to me the richest of all. The art included in them might look like anything from Dürer to Paul Klee.

The journal has been for me both a room and a door. It's an entirely private refuge for musing, raging, and celebrating. But it's also an entry point into the larger world, a way to engage what's going on around me. A Trail Through Leaves asks you the reader to go outside first-in hopes that you will find the outside finally the most encompassing inside.

Customer Reviews

A beautiful book--inspirational and instructional
For those of us attempting to cut through the clutter of busy urban life, this book is a beautiful reminder of how to use close, patient observation of what's around us to enhance our enjoyment of life. Hannah Hinchman even includes practical tips for equipping yourself with thetools of a field artist. After reading two chapters, I bought three pencils and a sketch pad and went to a local park to find something to draw. I hadn't seriously drawn anything in twenty some years, but her book reminded me of how important excursions into the woods had been whento me when I was young. A Trail Through Leaves made my eyes hungry to observe quirky insects and plants, and my hand itchy to draw again. The hardcover book is beautifully printed and laid out and feels good in your hands. It's not a "can't put it down" read--it's a book to dip into and go back to. For animal lovers, it should be noted that Hannah Hinchman's love for horses and cats is contagious; her respect for them and sense of wonder about her connection to them are commmunicated through her sketches and her writing.

Somewhat dissapointing
Having kept journals since I was a kid, I thought this book might help to renew my passion for the activity and inspire me to see new things. The premise of the book seemed perfect: the journal as a path to place. But be forewarned: this book is not a manual for how to explore the world around you or examine your life through journaling. It is a wordy autobiography of one woman and the techniques that work for her. The first chapter is nothing but an exhaustive summary of her own life and the journals she kept; the second rambles on and on about the differences in ball-point pens and small art brushes, all described through the experiences of the author: "I like the Bic much better than the heavy, pretentious Mont Blanc ballpoint pen that my friend found in the street. It's unbalanced, and the tip is stingy and stiff. But the Mont Blac fountain pen - there is a truely loveable tool."

Reading this book, I can't help but feel that it is a forged account of being true to oneself. Each illustration, supposedly taken from the author's journals, is picture-perfect and ready to be hung on the wall. Any written text that accompanies it is painstakingly neat and labored. There isn't a visual hint of imperfection anywhere, and it makes the book seem commercial and not very real.

This book does have several good points: it has some very good lessons on art technique and it does hold some very thought-provolking observations amidst the flowery language and self-absorbed babbling. But if you're like me and looking for a book to help you dive below the surface of perfectionistic drawings and whimsical, unobtrusive text, look elsewhere.

Beautiful introduction to visual diary-keeping
In my 15 years of keeping a diary, I spent the first 10 keeping a conventional written record of thoughts, ideas, and occurances. But about 5 years ago my diary keeping received a pleasant and unexpected jolt when I encountered Hannah Hinchman's 'A Trail Through Leaves: The Journal as a Path to Place'. This beautifully written and illustrated book on keeping a visual diary completely enlarged my ideas of what a diary could be: a visual record as well as a meditation on the material universe.