The Simple Artisty Within Philipp Keel's "Simple Diary"

July 7, 2009 6:28 a.m. EST

Las Vegas, NV (CNS) - Philipp Keel, the author of the international bestseller "All About Me" series, is well-known for books which entertainingly probe the unnavigated narrows of a reader's mind. With the publication of his brand new Simple Diary, the answers to those questions can finally materialize into a written form.

It seemed so obvious to Keel that such a tool could be fashioned in the form of an unconventional diary. He knew it was something he wanted to do. He explains, "I wrote these question books and people started asking 'Are you only asking questions?' I needed to move on and do what people asked me to do...answering all these questions."

"The first purpose I guess of writing Simple Diary was that I needed structure. I'm an artist and we need structure. I like things easy and simple. As much as I work, I am a lazy person too. I need a little discipline to really go at things."

He adds, "I wanted to create something where people can just lean back and enjoy a little bit."

Simple Diary is a response to the frenetic, overloaded world of sifting through emails and carrying on in a mechanized, auto-pilot fashion. Keel calls this condition the "world of information overload." We are a detailed-obsessed, task master culture of charting our daily lives down to the millisecond.

Somehow quieting our minds through the art of writing can produce an anchoring effect for people.

Keel is quick to indicate that Simple Diary is intended as both a calming and creative tonic. "You want to keep it easy and not overwhelm your audience. You want to find the right brush. It's not another self help book or another vitamin they have to chew."

In the words of its author, Simple Diary is a "compilation of thoughts, stupid and some beautiful...a little psychology, a little philosophy and some life wisdom."

His aim was not "preach and teach." Journaling should not be an obligation or challenge. It's a "simple tool" to invite deeper thinking and empower the soul.

"I just wanted to give people something that is there and they can reach for it whenever they want," Keel matter-of-factly states.

Starved readers suffering from cliché burn out and looking to escape from unoriginal publications will find refreshment within the diary's pages. You don't even need to crack it open to enjoy it. It works as a "nice companion to hold in our hand or fall asleep with," Keel explains.

Pert prompts such as "quickly make a graph of your lived life" are layered with red lettered insights like "Passion explored endures more" and "It may be impolite to criticize but it is still important." Odd delights like "a kite may not fly at night" are also slipped into the each brightly hued volume.

Certainly when someone authors such a creative collusion of questionnaires, a little bit of their own self is revealed. In Keel's case, he "discovered that I should take it easier, not stress so much about everything and not lean myself too much out the window when I do things."

For him, penning Simple Diary was an inadvertent self help tool. "It helped me a lot. It changed the way I look at things." He continues, "Obviously when you sit down there's a process that needs time. And time makes you a different person."

It's been a lifetime process coming to this point in Keel's life. He was able to tap into the swirl of imaginative material in his head, distill it and then throw it down like paint splatters on a canvas. Familiar territory for a multi-media artist specializing in painting, photography, etching and drawing.

On the dual influence of his art and writing, he express, "I think every artist has something to say. At a certain a point, when he cannot paint that or draw that, he feels obliged to put it on a page...In general, one helps another. The words help the painting and the drawings. And the paintings help the words."

The result was a concise, often humorous working which nimbly navigates through the dusty corners of their imagination. When reading Simple Diary you are anything but a reader. You become an active journalist, theorist and visionary.

"I think everyone is somehow a writer and a dreamer. An artist in a way," Keel proclaims.

When asked if additional volumes are to follow, Keel revealed that "there is a second and third volume in the make." He did not expound on those developments for he wants to "enjoy the first 6 colors that have come out."

The excited reaction from celebrity fans Cameron Diaz, Steven Spielberg, Dustin Hoffman and others is "wonderful." Even children have expressed enjoyment. "When kids tell you something then it's good. You can assume you did something right," Keel acknowledges. Finding readers from a younger demographic speaks to the accessibility and pure soul searching candor of Simple Diary.

Keel's catalogue of contemplations, poetic scribbles and blank space, bounded together in the silver-rimmed tome that is Keel's Simple Diary is stimulant for even the most blocked up of minds. It's a wordscape of juxtaposed ideas dreamt up by one artist just wanting to tease out the artist in everyone.