Studio Series: Chortitza oak leaf silhouette

Chortitza oak leaf silhouette © Karen Thiessen, 2016

Twyla Tharp, via her excellent book The Creative Habit, taught me to dedicate a box or two to each significant project. I have one for each my tags project and an ongoing Mennonite project. The latter box gets more action and is filled to the brim. The other day I was searching for a specific image and after some silent swearing, I found it in another place. There is something to be said for the collision of images in a very full box: It can be great for ideas to emerge unexpectedly. 

That being said, I realized that I needed a categorized repository of images. Deep in my office closet teetering on the top shelf, I found an empty binder and my filing cabinet offered up some empty page protectors and some page dividers. With these previously used office supplies I set to create order. It's still a work in progress, but I'm excited to be able to simply go to the "flora and fauna" section for my drawings of wheat, Chortitza oak leaves, and outlines of doves. For now my images of the Red Gate mingle in the "places" section with outlines of Pelee Island, and copies of Mennonite villages. In time, I may move the Red Gate images to a "structures" section that I hope to fill with images and drawings of windmills and the like. The "words" section is filling up, whereas the "food" section contains one lone drawing of Zwieback. The above image of the Choritza oak leaf silhouette will be filed in the "flora and fauna" section once I've finished writing this post.