Sketchbook 1, 1957-58

Sketchbook I comprises Eunice Parsons early years as an artist and shows her personal changes as a product of her being in dialogue with new surroundings. Many of these images are in response to her travels to the east coast, as well as to her gaining a new means of interpolating her home into her private notebook through studies of her surroundings. This manifests in her focus on portraits, landscapes, and genre scenes that are all naturalistic and documentary. This sketchbook establishes a baseline of content to be further explored and interpreted in the later two sketchbooks, and which gives a sense of what Parsons' original inclinations and interests may have been.

Cheyenne 11-11-57

This sketch is typical of the early images from this sketchbook. It seems to be either drawing practice or a record of the places and things that Parsons saw on her trip to the East Coast.

Grand Island, Nebraska, 11-13-57

This page shows the studious nature that characterizes this sketchbook. Parsons is not only sketching her surroundings but also making a note of the basic elements that compose her surroundings as an image being viewed. Her notes on the colors that she sees, as well as the composition, become further dilated when she begins looking at artworks rather than landscapes.

Reads, "Lovely bricks to left predominantly gray with pink shadowing thru. Middle mainly overall terra cotes - foreground bright than Venetian red- almost salmon. Central fire escape to (illegible) - Bldg to left white - Good black accents."

Philadelphia 11-27-57.

This landscape was made towards the end of Parsons' trip to the East Coast. It shows a slight shift away from her more strictly naturalistic tendencies from earlier landscapes, and instead, demonstrates her interpreting what she sees into a new image.

No location or date, possibly Philadelphia or Washington D.C.

This landscape seems a return to her more typical landscape style but utilizes a strange type of perspective. It seems that the landscape is made with the viewer at a higher than ground position, or with the main road back to the tall object being especially elongated. In either case, this is an example of Parsons exercising her creative license through small alterations.

No location or date, likely Washington, D.C.

By far the most detailed landscape in this sketchbook, this image can be seen as a turning point in two distinct ways. Firstly, the attention to the specific details and the naturalism of the scene becomes much more typical in the rest of the sketchbook as well as in the other sketchbooks. Secondly, there are characters going about their daily life comprising an entire scene capturing a moment in time from real life. This is in opposition to the way that Parsons had previously made landscapes that were simply studies of what she saw before her. The amount of detail shown in this image shows a desire to capture a narrative that remains elusive to the viewer, but that is a 'slice of life' from the artist's perspective.

Don Haas 1-11-58

The first of many portraits, this is the first image in the sketchbook after Parsons' return from her trip to the East Coast. It is indicative of a change in subject from the grandiose cityscapes that dominate the rest of the pages of this sketchbook, to highly personal portraits and scenes of the artist's daily life with her family and friends.

By far the most emotionally evocative portrait in the sketchbook, this seems to be highly personal. The older woman portrayed is caught in a moment of somber repose which Parsons is able to capture through a highly naturalistic style. Parsons seems focuses on capturing an empathic quality, however, this is not an isolated attempt. In fact, Parsons becomes increasingly aware of the importance of creating an emotional connection to her subject. This image could represent the beginning of the attempt to portray a specific emotion, and may also be a reflection of the artist's own feelings after returning from such a stimulating experience away from the Northwest.

After returning from the East Coast, Parsons' takes on several consistent subjects in her sketches. One of these primary motifs being a young child, possibly a baby, and its caretaker. These sketches are often playful and light-hearted, capturing an intimate moment in the family life of Parsons in a role other than an artist.

This sketch shows Parsons' experimentation with multiple mediums on one page and how the artist uses her surroundings as a testing ground for different methods of rendering.