Thoughts Diary
One day in spring 2026, I walked into the ER of Heidelberg's University Hospital and got back home a month later. Almost a fairy tale. Where the hero mysteriously disappears and hangs out with the Tuatha Dé Danann.
So, what was happening behind the veil? Disappointingly, nothing epic. I was stuck in a stuffy grey room. A few beds, a table, medical machinery. Certain things that would gross out any healthy human being, so let us peacefully not dwell on those.
There was a small garden pond under the window outside, and I got accustomed to sketching flowers and enjoying a choir of frogs giving concerts through the night. Heavy sarcasm. Those little bastards make patients suffer so much that it may as well be put on their record as a separate diagnosis.
A friend brought me books, a faux-textured journal and metallic pens of various colours. Not something I would typically choose to draw with. What's more, my usual artistic process requires seeing something as a starting point. Something catches my eye, I study it, sketch it, reflect on it. Paint something abstract afterwards. This is how Heidelberg's Artifacts and Digressions came into being.
And what can you see in a hospital? I mean, apart from the Grand Pond Choir?
But well, I was rather bored. And painfully, desperately hungry to see... something else. Not the grey wall.
I took the paper and the metallic pens. I read the books. I entertained myself by watching my own thoughts. I drew them, good and bad.
Dreams, scenes from the books, memories of favourite poems and views of places I've never been to. Misremembered past and imagined future. All colourful and metallic, on faux-textured paper. Incongruent. Awkward line for awkward reality.
I called the experiment Thoughts Diary.