Last night for no reason other than it was there, in my face, I started tossing items and failed artwork from my studio. My hoarding gene (which I got from my Mother) had caused me to hang on to art and objects that I kept thinking I would finish or use or 'fix'. Finally, my purging gene (from my Father) kicked in and things flew into a big pile. I carried the load up this morning to the trash, which will be picked up today...so no changing of my mind and rescuing items! It's amazing the amount of clutter I've been able to endure in my tiny studio. Here's the picture...it's a 12X16 shed that I lived in for 6 months a couple of years ago (that's a whole other story) It's jammed full of vintage paper and junk that folks used to leave on my doorstep. I'm glad I'm not in town anymore, even if the items left were not that interesting to me I always had a hard time throwing out the 'gifts' from friends if they were not usable in my art. Thinking about this today I realized I'm a 'fixer' by nature. If it's not houses and plumbing etc...it's the art pieces that I just kept thinking, 'Well, this isn't very good now, but I can fix it, so why get rid of it?' Now I realize not everything can or should be fixed. What a great relief!
3 comments:
Must be something in the air -- I am about four large garbage bags into doing the same thing. There's failed artwork I can re-use and re-work but there's a whole lot of STUFF I won't ever touch again and have no desire to look at either and that's going! It's too soon where I live to call this "spring cleaning" but maybe it's "spring dreaming." Glad to read that your work is selling AND that you're still making houses.
Well, I wish I knew how to do it. Even crossing oceans, changing countries, I drag some "fixable" junk with me - I'm thinking particularly of a foldable sort of tri-mirror, 18 inches high for the centre one, the frame only, which is broken in one place. I have it in a trunk and it goes everywhere. This is not the only item! I cannot throw it out. And yet I
know we feel better when we remove the clutter that's hidden in the box, that's hidden in the closet. But who sees it? And I never go there. Is it still cluttering my mind silently?
Oh, and hi Julie!
Good for you Julie! I like the idea of 'spring dreaming'. Fran I'm glad you checked in too. There are pieces like that in my studio as well. Can't explain it. Some items just get a hold of you I guess. I like to think that they wait around until we are ready to understand what their purpose is...
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