When I was a few months into my research on my biography of painter Elisabeth Chant, I bought a thrift shop item to house my growing stacks of notes.
That piece of furniture, shelves that were more like mail slots, was fine for a while.
But recently I realized I needed more space, and lots more different files. The distinctions in topics were growing ever finer, in addition to the added piles of bulk material.
So: a new container. I'm up to a very deep-drawered file cabinet, dressed in a sari from Varanasi, the setting of my novel Sister India. (This is the very distinctive Banarsi brocade.)
And this doesn't count the shelves of books, or the digital material.
I expect I'll have to repot another time or three before this book is done. It's a satisfying piece of the process, seeing it grow.
