Shelved and Tidy

My new bookcases

For the past two Christmases, my gifts from Santa were Ikea bookcases – one case per year. I had requested them to help me get my ever-growing collection of sketchbooks – which were starting to stack up on every horizontal surface, including the floor – in order. Until very recently, however, both bookcases remained unassembled in our basement in their original Ikea cartons because I realized I couldn’t move them into my studio until I took a bunch of unwanted stuff out.

In January I finally got organized and hauled the stuff out (see the photo in this post), and Santa’s helper had space to assemble the bookcases. This week the sketchbooks are off the floor and in their new home at last. Ahhh! (After several years of feeling burdened by my excess of “stuff,” that’s the sound of relief and satisfaction.)

Arranged chronologically from top to bottom, the sketchbooks on the top shelf are a mish-mash of assorted sizes and types as I tried many, many books to find ones I liked. Several were only partially filled before I rejected them. The next three shelves look more uniform as I settled on my handbound books, with only occasional experiments with other types. I left one shelf empty to hold future books, and the bottom shelf holds the larger spiral-bound sketchbooks I use at life drawing. 

March 2018

Not stored in the bookcase at all are another dozen sketchbooks I keep on my work table for still lives and experiments with various media.

What about that whole second bookcase that remains empty? That’s for future sketchbooks, too. But I have plans for all those empty shelves in the meantime. Stay tuned.

Shown below are photos I’ve taken over the years of shelves in another bookcase that I had been using previously to store sketchbooks.

2015

2014

2012