In 2012, Orlando created a visual diary image every day throughout the year. In these six inch collage/drawings, Orlando recorded his daily perceptions and emotions. In this way, he documented his unfolding inner life.
For centuries, people have turned to private journals to document their days, understand creative challenges, comfort them in solitude, or record their stories for the future. Pillowbooks of Japanese court ladies and Asian travel journals have preserved the distant past. Queen Victoria’s excerpts from her journals became a 1868 bestseller, Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands.
In his diary, Thoreau sought “to meet the facts of life—the vital facts—face to face.” Diaries have influenced all of us, from Anne Frank’s brave record to today’s millions of blogs. Modern diaries are often a conscious act of self-exploration, exemplified by Carl Jung and Anais Nin. The sketchbooks of Leonardo da Vinci and Frida Kahlo are well known art diaries.
Orlando’s visual diary is an artistic and spiritual journey, an archive and a memoir, an illuminated manuscript and the autobiography of a year in his life.
