Lists  

I love lists. Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I make a list. I separate it out into categories, and subcategories. I write down small things and large things and things that I’ve already done so I can check them off immediately and feel good about myself. I write them in my journal, in my Notes app, on loose sheets of paper, on my computer and sometimes on notecards. Occasionally, I compile these lists together into one list. Sometimes it worries me how many lists I have floating around. One time I found a note that just said, “TO DO: Art”.

When I was speaking to Hilary Powell, she said,

      I do lots and [lots] of lists. I've just discovered Miro, this online whiteboard thing… and that's because I haven't even got a wall big enough, or any wall [even], to put it all on and [I] need to see it all spread out. And that’s helped to kind of cluster and find the links between projects because sometimes you're like, “why am I doing…?”[i]

While I love lists and making lists, I don’t have a list that allows me to visualize the links between my projects. It would be useful though… I have this fantasy of reaching this clarity about my artistic practice that I shared with Leah Capaldi. This fantasy that, “one day, I'll really just get to the bottom of my practice, or I'll, you know, really figure out what I want to do.”[ii] This began first when I graduated from my undergraduate degree into a recession and then worked between a restaurant and a coffee/cupcake shop while I applied to other jobs and Fellowships. I remember thinking, I just have to work enough so that I can get maybe a week off my paid job so I can just sit in a coffee shop, have a good think, and figure my life out. Even though I know that’s not how it works, when things get difficult, I still think that I just need a week at a coffee shop and to make a couple of lists.

I also don’t have a central reading list, nor a central list of all the people, places, and things that I want to look up, nor a central list of the things that inspire me. I am, however, jealous of people who can be proper academics because they have an encyclopedic knowledge about something or other; and jealous of proper artists who can play that game volleying artists’ names and exhibition titles back and forth. I know if I created a centralized set of lists then that might help me to structure my education in a way that was more intentional and could help me to move closer to becoming a “proper academic” and a “proper artist”.

Occasionally, I’ve compiled these lists, most recently for PhD applications. I have a bibliography and since I started my PhD in October 2020, I’ve read some of these books, added some books, and removed some books. I know that I have other books written down in emails, in my Notes app, in texts, and on the backs of receipts and napkins that I should add to this list… and one day I will collect those lists as well, perhaps in an attempt to avoid actually reading anything on this list.

I fear the length of this list. Also, seeing all of these books (which I am interested in individually) together, instantly makes me disinterested in reading any of them. I immediately feel the need to close the document on my computer and go clean my room or do my taxes, or literally anything else. Especially now that I bought myself time by applying for and receiving funding, now I’ve got the time and the resources… I’d better go reorganize my closet and deep clean my bathroom…

The artist who I spoke to who would like to remain Anonymous told me that they were,

      … talking about it in this conversation group, actually, about this building up of actual real and digital sources that you’re supposed to look up, and that you’ve tagged, and that just keep getting bigger and bigger. And then almost feeling overwhelmed by them, because you never quite get to them, but you really desperately want to because they’re all so interesting and relevant.[iii]

I know one day soon I’ll have to grow up and force myself to sit down while I still have time and funding left, and gather up all these lists together, and compile them, and make sure they are comprehensive and then go through them, one by one. I’ll need to list out the moments and phrases and artworks and texts that inspire me so much that I am constantly bringing them up in conversation, so that I can revise my artist statement and say (with more clarity and conviction) that my art is about X and by using Y it interrogates Z.

… but in the meantime, I’ll read that article that my friend sent me about that opera singer that left her profession to be a tram driver, and see that exhibition that’s on the island with the ponies, and think about going to the cafe that makes the really good vegan cinnamon buns so I can sit down and make a list and see what connects together so I can finally get to the bottom of things.

Kelly Lloyd

[i] “Interview with Hilary Powell” Kelly Lloyd. April 23, 2021. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/hilary-powell

[ii] “Interview with Leah Capaldi” Kelly Lloyd. March 3, 2021. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/leah-capaldi

[iii] “Interview with Anonymous” Kelly Lloyd. March 22, 2021. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/anonymous (Anonymous- 09:11)