Right now I’m looking at the wall above my desk. On it is (as well as the cross-stitch version of Hokusai’s Great Wave and a knitting recipe for socks that fit me) a series of post-it notes.
I like to have a tidy workspace, but it’s generally impossible to maintain, so I keep areas of it relatively tidy and re-arrange my notebooks and tins of pencils at least once a week. Part of trying to keep things clear is the post-its. They’re a very simple system:
I write a title of an idea for a project on the wall when I know I want it to go somewhere.
It stares at me until I get organised and make it happen.
When I’ve declared it finished, uploaded it wherever it needs to go and added it to my website, the post-it goes in my notebook like a little yellow trophy.
I like to have two to three post-its in action at any one time.
There are currently 8 post-its on the wall, and I’m about to add a new one, which (I hope) will be a short, fun video made in collaboration with my Uncle, who’s a radio presenter in Greater Manchester.
Glancing at my files, I remember I shot a video about the benches at the top of the Millers Knowe in Hawick that I’ve forgotten to edit, too. I don’t think I’ll give it a post-it, it was more of a purpose to a circuitous walk around the hill than a concept for an artwork. Maybe the walk was the artwork and I should put together the film to document it…
Some of the post-its are more urgent than others, which I think is where the system is starting to break down.
Some of them are more fun than others too.
There’s no way of knowing which ones will actually feel kind of satisfying to finish.
Maybe I should make a video about the post-its, but that would mean I’d have to add another to the wall.
Anyway, because I like lists, here you go:
Stone circles in the woods (a vague thought)
My Favourite Pencils (a Christmas video I didn’t get my head around in time, so maybe next year…)
Yellow Boots (priority case)
Landscape / Portrait (overdue conceptually but with no real deadlines to worry about)
Nice (instant) Pictures of Trees (this will be a book, watch out for my Kickstarter campaign!)
Fountain (waiting for warmer weather)
Waterfall (was waiting for warmer weather, then decided on colder weather, and now would like warmer weather again)
There used to be a cairn here (awaiting research on a local poet, who ‘held views in keeping with his time’ (so it’s okay to be a fragile misogynist?))
Urm (urm…)
Jessie Growden 