June Leaf: Japan 1970

Leaf’s reproduced journal from her pivotal trip to Japan creates an impressionistic fusion of text and image

This book is an intricate facsimile of a diary/sketchbook that American artist June Leaf (born 1929) filled during her travels throughout Japan in 1970. Through sprawling drawings in pencil and ink, paintings, collages and handwritten and typed thoughts, Leaf spontaneously captured her impressions on a journey both joyous and difficult, of pleasure and what she calls “that torture that occurs sometimes during travel.” From real scenes such as the view through the plane window approaching Japan, streetscapes, landscapes and a portrait of a passenger and conductor in a Hiroshima streetcar, to imagined visions including what she calls “scenes of paradise or Garden of Eden,” image and text mingle like the accumulation of experiences over time. The paper and binding cloth of Japan 1970 closely match the originals, to transport the reader as deeply as possible into Leaf’s intensively creative and self-reflective mind.