Anna Kuen, you’re an artist and you keep a striking number of notebooks. What do you record in them?
I have one notebook and one sketchbook always lying open on my desk in the studio. Before I start painting, I write something in the notebook. It’s a ritual to clear my head. It might be a single word, a description of my mood, something that’s currently preoccupying me or something I don’t want to forget. 

As for the sketchbook, I draw in it – to prepare for my work on canvas, and I note down ideas for the title of the series. Sometimes I write down passages I’ve read elsewhere that resonate with the work for me. If I get stuck while working on something, I flick back through my workbooks and try to pick up dropped threads like that.

How do you order your thoughts? Lists or mind maps?
Usually mind maps. I observe how my notes develop a rhythm. For example, I always structure a page in the same way, using a kind of template, not that I’ve ever thought about it. Because my notebooks are often unruled, it can also happen that a note scoots up to the top and gets fitted with arrows. That can also take on a life of its own between the head and the hand. It’s my way of arranging my thoughts.

As a painter, do you tend to think more in words or in images?
In images – and in colours. Even though I always put my sketches and notes on paper using a black fineliner, I’m still thinking in colour.

Do you have rituals for writing?
Besides the mental hygiene ritual in the studio as just described, I also use notebooks at home for noting what I want to get done. I always need handwritten notes like that. As soon as I’ve put my thoughts on paper, I have them out of my head and I feel less stressed. There’s more room for creativity. This is way beyond to-do lists, and it’s also different from classic diary-keeping. If I’m not clear about something, I try to capture it in words. Sometimes I sit down and reflect on my status quo. What do I like right now? What don’t I like? What would I like to change? It’s an exciting process. Rendering thoughts visible by putting them on paper handwritten brings so much clarity. Sometimes, while I’m doing it, I realise, oh... actually this thing is nowhere near as important or big as I thought. But the opposite is also possible: maybe this thing is even bigger than I imagined.

How do writing and drawing by hand affect your creativity? Are you more intuitive with pen and paper?
Definitely. I can focus better when I write by hand. Creativity is about focus for me, and about blocking out the outside world. What gets on to the paper in the artistic process is often unexpected – that’s true of sketches and words alike. I usually develop the title for a group of works when I’m already in the midst of working on it, and there too I rely on what gets written down intuitively.

Do you hold on to your notebooks?
Yes, the books are on the bookshelf.

Do you use particular pens?
Yes, usually fineliners from Muji. But I sometimes also buy a few from Lidl at the start of the school year (laughs). I get through quite a lot, because I’m always leaving them somewhere.

Do you take your notebooks with you when you travel?
Yes, I feel totally naked when I travel without a notebook. But surprisingly I write a lot more in them when I’m at home.

Are you thrifty or wasteful?
Wasteful. I always like to start a new page.

Are there notes that are close to your heart, so you guard them like treasure?
Everyday notes that my husband Johannes writes and puts in my bag. Or that he leaves for me when he travels away. And a handwritten bill from our favourite Italian, which has sadly closed down. That’s stuck on our fridge at home, to remind us of happy times there.