Almost an Autobiography

At about six years old, I began saving my drawings, birthday cards, postcards, letters, and all favorite objects and ephemera that entered my young life. So many keepsakes that I could not bear to part with—either for their sentimental value and memories, or simply for their beauty.

Now, seven decades later, while never abandoning my need to save most things, I understand why.

Maybe it is because I unconsciously knew that these treasured items would someday tell my story for me.

“Almost an Autobiography” is a compilation—in no chronological order—that started out as a personal project—and ode to myself for myself. My joy in creating this book was the complete simplicity of pairing images that felt so right and harmonious to my eye. A book, you might say wholly self-referential, a book for beauty’s sake.

But I’ve also come to understand that this book is a treasure house of memories that I shared with my family, and now in this book, I am there.

That apart, it is, in the main, a book of my entire life to this point. It is a souvenir of my travels, my loves, my lovers, my creative projects, where I’ve lived and what is and was contained in my various homes—all of the objects I have collected over so many years that have been my constant companions. In brief, this book is my retrospective.

Looking back I am wistful for the life that I have lived.

I have now become a sentimental spectator of myself.

- LINDA RODIN