A Trail Through Leaves: The Journal as a Path to Place

Hannah's book is a delight - especially in the way she leads you along through her thought processes. She is skilled at both writing and drawing...but more so at helping you to see a different way of percieving and experiencing the world around you. This book is one I will treasure for a long time.

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.

Hinchman writes about her own experiences about journaling why she continues to write and draw in them. She breaks the book down into different parts of journaling at the end of each chapter she has a few pages of activities that you can use in your own journaling. But the book isn't preachy she talks about journaling from her point of view. What makes the book so beautiful is that it is filled with excerpts from her own journals over the years, both drawings and words. For me this book was especially good because it didn't tell you how to journal as if it was some set of instructions. Instead she, as in the title, led me down a trail.

Having briefly met the author and once lived in the geographical area the book was written, I'm quite biased, but I find this a fascinating piece of literature. Whether exploring the shady side of a mountain or traversing a city street, Hannah records her life every step of the way. Her observations are astute and profound, her drawings astonishingly detailed and thorough. She has the knack of soaring you into flight, propelling you underwater, or delicately placing you inside a fragile blossom. This is more of a dabble and browse book, and it's wonderful if you just want to look at the pictures. Journalists, authors, artists, or anyone who wants to bring more focus and an appreciation for the art of paying attention into their life will find this book a creative revolution.

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.