Listomania!

I wasn’t sure what to write about today, then a fellow blogger that I’ve been following told me about a website that I would be sure to like:

http://www.listography.com     …check it out.

Yes!! I love to make lists. Lists make me feel in control of my life, and help me through what I call my ‘creatively-dormant’ periods. What are these? No, they are not times when I find creative ways to lie dormant 🙂
Creatively-dormant periods, are stretches of time where I desperately want to work on a project, my head bursting with ideas and fingers itching to go, but can’t.

My kids have been playing germ ping pong lately, and every other week, one of them is laid up at home needing cuddles, medicine and constant attention, all of which I give willingly. However, I am one of those twitchy people, who always has projects brewing in my head, and a nagging need to finish off things that have been started. This is where lists come in helpful, they give me a sense of continuity when I take big breaks in the middle of projects.

A note about lists

Lists are an art-form in themselves. You can be very creative when making lists. Someone who truly loves making lists does not just make them about practical things (shopping lists, to-do lists), but includes the intangible and inspirational as well.
I make lists to help me keep on top of my life (such as lists of ideas for projects, lists of topics for blogs, lists of things to be finished) but I also make lists about interesting things I see, funny dialogues I hear in the grocery store, and cute things that my kids do. One particular list that I have is called ‘The Awesome List’, where I list anything or anyone that I deem awesome.

“But what purpose does this serve?” I hear some of you say (obviously, the non-list-makers). Well, on the surface of it, none really. But if you look beyond the surface, you will see that it all serves a purpose. List making is just a way of recording observations and information, and you never know when that information may come in useful, or moves you in a new direction. As an artist, I often have “aha” moments when suddenly, something on a list inspires me to start a new project. As E.M Forster wrote in Howard’s End “Only Connect!…Live in fragments no longer.”

So here are a few things from my interesting things list  for you to chew on:

Post-it notes
migration patterns
family reunions
Tree silhouettes
Medieval history
Drop-box
Books about Indian immigrants by Jhumpa Lahiri
Nordic woolen garments
maps
Sylvia Plath
Math textbooks
open green spaces

Maybe, some of these will influence my work sometime soon. Maybe not.

As a final note, here is a BBC article about list-making as an art form: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8537856.stm

Now, what was next on my to-do list?….