Invisible Threads and Notebooks
Originally Published on my Patreon Page…
January 20, 2025
It’s been 15 days since I touched the illustration that I’m naming “Love Knitting Lady.” The idea was to place it aside for a couple of days to return with fresh eyes, catch anything that may look off and move forward. Yet, each time I thought of coming into my studio to work, it felt like the wrong time. My entire life I strove to disengage from my feelings running my work (which now includes paid work as a consultant and my artwork). I’ve developed routines and habits to stay productive, to the point of scheduling time to vent. But my life has changed tremendously since 2020 and my tips and tricks no longer work because the lines between work, family and play have blurred or disappeared. I now continuously re-design my schedule so that I can stay sane, stay on top of responsibilities that cannot be moved (as these involve my loved ones), keep myself from feeling overwhelmed, keep myself healthy so that I can attend to my loved ones, keep myself from overthinking…journaling has been an amazing tool to maintain my sanity. Most times, I write to detangle many thoughts. I discovered that by writing, I sort myself out. I write what comes to mind, even if it doesn’t make sense, until it starts making sense and I start seeing what was beneath the junky thoughts. For sure, pearls of wisdom come through once the junk is removed. And pearls of wisdom can be anything like the one a couple of weeks ago: “discard any items that no longer fit who you are today.” And though this pearl seemed like an odd one (because if it’s old, chipped, ugly, cheap, no longer needed or wanted, I’ve let it go), I decided to entertain it. So for almost 15 days, it seems, I spent time reviewing those “items that no longer fit who I am” and discarding them. Yet, I still wasn’t inspired enough to come into the studio or work on my art. So I decided to apply this exercise to my Notion App. I discarded pages and topics that were space takers, ideas that no longer reflect who I am. I learned in Feng Shui, that we have invisible threads tying us to our things, I would think this includes notion pages full of old ideas that I never took action on. Ideas not properly closed, I imagined would still have their invisible threads cluttering my mind. After all, my Notion App is the tool that I use as my second brain.
Within Notion I keep my Artist Diary and notes on other notebooks that I maintain, including my common place notebook. I don’t like mental clutter, therefore, I keep reminders of the purpose of each notebook so that I stick to it. Maybe one day I’ll write about how I came up with each specific notebook and its purpose. My Artist Diary within Notion is active, it’s where I keep notes of research that I’m working on, studies I’m doing, personal musings, and inspiration. But I keep it very tight and concise. And this is because it contains things I review and go back to constantly. It started as a way for me to follow my own brain and what it was interested in at the moment. Very different from the Studio Notebook Pages that I write within Patreon, as those evolve from my personal Projects (for which I have a specific template that I complete with a step by step of the project). I also use Patreon to house this type of writing that is part of the creation process, but falls outside of a specific project or artwork; we all must get through these periods of “I don’t feel like creating,” so why not write about it. While purging my Notion and re-reading my Artist Diary, I was reminded of one of the very few writers’ blog that I bookmarked to read when I had time. I also bought this writers 3 books on Audible back in 2022, but if I ever listened to the audiobooks, I don’t remember (which is why Notion comes in handy these days). While skimming through his blog, I came across a picture and post of his notebooks plus links to other posts about his many notebooks. This reminded me of how much I love reading about other people’s diaries, notebooks, and journals. I especially enjoy notebooks from non-artists; I like to see what they collect, what grabs their attention. It reminds me of the time when a book was published about DaVinci’s notebooks. I got the book because of the pictures, but it wasn’t his artistic pictures that grabbed me but the images of everything else that he explored and wrote to himself about. These personal collections, say so much about the person that keeps them; I think Leonardo’s notebooks were the first time I gave myself permission to be as I am, because I have so many interests outside of what I do for work or my art. I recently learned that there is a term for people like me, the term is “generalist.” I do not consider myself competent enough in my interests, but when something grabs me, I want to know as much as I can about it. I also don’t think I dive deep enough or maybe I didn’t keep good enough records or notes, which is why my notebooks and notion are now in place, to keep me focused, maybe something will come of it. I wrote about the process of curation, which is a must these days with so much more information. As I curate my life, I curate what I read and the notes that I keep.
This morning, finally, I made it to my studio and I’ve only left it to do my daily unmovable responsibilities. And here I still am, in my studio! And while I worked I listened to Show Your Work, book 2 of the set of 3 audio books that I got on Audible. The book got me thinking that I better share more of myself now because no one will be showing my notebooks when I’m old or after I die! When we had to declutter my mom’s home (so that she had plenty of space to walk with her walker), my brother would say, “just throw it all away.” Luckily my sister and I enjoyed looking at all the memories, saving those that leave a little trail of our family life, and learning a bit more about mom through her notes, lists, cards and old letters. So while listening to the audiobook, this mental image of my brother throwing away my sketchbooks and notebooks came up and got me to reflect that maybe there are things that I wrote, things that I thought, things that I mused that would be a shame to leave only within the sketchbooks and notebooks for no one to skim through or muse over. Maybe my nieces? But when I’m older, they will be busy with their own grown up lives. Maybe. I’ve kept all of their drawings and sketchbooks, we revisit them together some times. I bought them each their own sketchbooks since before they could hold a pencil. I instilled in them the practice of keeping a sketchbook. They don’t keep a sketchbook these days, but a few weeks ago, when they were over, they wanted to draw and I pulled out their last sketchbooks. They looked through the pages. Smiled. Laughed. Drew some more. There is so much joy in capturing many things inside a notebook or a journal or a sketchbook. Here is a picture of all my current notebooks. All active. Each has a purpose. The red one is my common place notebook, it goes with me everywhere.