Order and Organization

My husband recently emailed me this photo with the comment, “Your desk doesn’t approach this!”

His words calmed my guilty panic about the growing piles of books and notes surrounding my computer.  Although I have never subscribed to the “day’s-end-clean-desk” model touted by efficiency experts, I can retrieve what I need to work on a project.

It got me thinking about the two words – order and organization.

The word order comes from a Latin word describing the sequencing of threads in the weft on a loom. In weaving, the weft (or woof) is important because in crossing in and out of the long threads, or warp, the weft shapes the design and the fabric being woven.  The originating word carries a very linear connotation because it means to set the threads in a specific order as they sit in a row.

With its roots in a word distantly related to the word work, organize holds a different sense than the word order. Organize derives from a word tied to a medical word describing how the internal processes of an organism are coordinated into a whole and functioning entity. To organize, then, is to embark on the process of discovering and then coordinating parts into an organic whole. It carries no dictates except whether or not the whole system “works.”

This time of year, I read and hear a great deal about “getting organized.”  Perhaps we need to pause and rethink the deeper meaning of what we propose to do!  There is no one secret solution for organizing a studio or how we work.  (Apologies to those who earn a living coaching others in how to organize their lives!)

I, the artist, determine the system that works for me.  I may choose ideas that others have adopted.  I may change my approach as my circumstances change.  However, the bottom line is that how I organize must feed my creativity and how I work.

So…feast your eyes on Agatha Christy’s desk and revel in the thought that “getting organized” is not a dictated behavior.  However, it is an essential activity that is part of a larger creative process.