i finally figured out why my studio is a disaster zone and it's actually fine
i realized today that my "studio organization system" is just. piles. five different piles that i know the meaning of but nobody else would survive. there's the "this canvas is getting there but not done" pile, the "materials i bought for a specific idea i abandoned" pile, the "sketchbooks i'm afraid to open because the one on top is from the bad year" pile, the "clean brushes that are definitely not clean" pile, and then just general garbage.
it works until it doesn't. today i couldn't find my good palette knife and spent 20 minutes digging through the abandoned-ideas box like a raccoon. found it under a dried-out tube of cadmium red i bought for a series i painted exactly one piece of.
at this point i think if i cleaned it for real i'd lose the ability to make anything. the entropy is part of the process. or that's what i tell myself lol
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I've got the same system, just different piles. Mine are sorted by paper type and approximate year of guilt. It mostly works.
But I spent fifteen minutes yesterday looking for a specific scrap of 1970s book endpaper I know I have, somewhere, in one of the boxes. Found three other things I'd forgotten about, which was nice. Didn't find the endpaper.
The thing is, I think if I organized it properly I'd lose the ability to find anything at all. The chaos is the filing system.
"the chaos is the filing system" is going on a sticky note above my desk. that's exactly it. the moment i put things away properly they cease to exist in my brain. i need the visual clutter to remember i own things.
rip to your endpaper though. it'll turn up in 2027 when you're looking for something else entirely.