A small portion of Donivan Howard’s sketchbook collection
Donivan’s favorite pin is also his first. He received it for volunteering at the Nuart Theater’s First International Animation Festival, 1986: “The character is a globe to represent the world of animation or global reach.”
Donivan’s custom-made sketchbook from Legatoria La Fenice, Venice, Italy
The Legatoria La Fenice sketchbook with its leather cover open exposing cotton paper pages
Also known as rag paper, the cotton paper inside this special drawing book is perfect for an artist because it is less acidic than wood pulp-based paper and lasts for many years without deteriorating
Donivan Howard with more of his many sketchbooks
Depicting an iconic image of Mickey Mouse steering the ship in his 1928 “talkie” debut Steamboat Willie, this pin is awarded to Walt Disney employees to mark their first year of employment.
Donivan Howard with some of his pin collection (including in the hat!)
A selection from Donivan’s pin collection, including pins from the aromatic Rochester Lilac Festival and the 2016 Rochester International Jazz Festival Disney Studios, and a Bugs Bunny portrait on a Warner Brothers Looney Toons pin.
“Ideas, Art, Stories,” one of the many sketchbooks that chart Donivan Howard’s life
Donivan with some of his 300+ sketchbooks
Donivan’s sketchbook collection: Shelf #4
Shelf #2, viewed from the front
Various collector pins, including one that commemorates the 2003 centenary of Harley-Davidson Inc.
A 2007 pin from the Hard Rock Cafe’s annual “Pinktober” breast cancer awareness campaign
A black guitar pin from the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Sketchbooks, Art Pins, & HardRock Cafe Pins
Donivan Howard
Art
Donivan Howard was in Venice, Italy, one day looking for a bakery, when something marvelous happened. “I’m walking down the tight walkways…I look to the left, and then to the right, and I see it. Oh my god! I must have done every dance move known to humans and fainted at the front door!”
What was the source of such exhileration? It was the front door to a legatoria – a small bookbinding atelier that would make a sketchbook using the customer’s drawing papers and bindings of choice. “Once I got up,” said Donivan, “I picked out the custom parts and had my cotton paper, leatherbound book made.”
With over 300 sketchbooks amassed since 1992, Donivan says that they “were a badge of honor in art school,” and now they are also “the time travel machine of my life.” “I can go forward or backward in time just by flipping the pages…drawing the present time, or an imaginative future to come.”
Donivan’s drawing books are not the only objects that mark his journey through life, however. Since 1987 he has also collected two types of pin: limited edition Hard Rock Café Pins, and Art Pins.
“The Hard Rock Café pins came by way of my fascination with the place itself. As I traveled, there would always be one at an unplanned destination,” Donivan explained. He always selects the guitar-shaped pins, because he is enthralled by “the variety of looks” that can be designed within the parameters of a single shape. All commemorate “an unexpected journey or some amazing event.”
While they may appear unconnected, the pins and the sketchbooks are intimately related. At the age of 15, Donivan flew to Los Angeles from his Detroit home to work as an artist volunteer at the Nuart Theater’s 1st International Animation Festival.“ The pin was the volunteers’ special badge,” said Donivan, and “I got the art of animation bug.”
For Donivan, his collections show “that in all that I do, Art comes first.” But what if someone or something doesn’t quite fit into that space? “I turn it, or them, or that, into an art project.” “My son was my project,” he explains, “he chose engineering…he went the design side of it as a Mechanical Engineer, designing the look and workings of robots.” In other words, as the project proved, “art and design is in everything.”