All day, I was doing paperwork, cleaning up and cleaning out, moving "stuff," shining shoes (yes, I actually do shine my own shoes, with the old fashioned brushes and paste shoe polish), looking for a variety of misplaced objects. Seems to me I lost a whole day. I know things get misplaced when we straighten up and I know it's because there is too much in this house! For sure, I blame my husband for a lot of misplaced things. Like last month I asked where our mitre box and saw was. He couldn't find not the one, not the second, and not even the third set I know we own. He offered to go to Home Depot to get another one. I was nearly hysterical! Who needs 4 mitre box sets in one home?
I resent all the attention we need to give to our possessions. It seems to me that the more tools and gadgets we get to make our lives easier, the more work we have to do to; clean them, put them away, and worst of all, find them when we need them again. I swore some years ago that I would start downsizing. I was beginning to feel my "stuff" owned me, rather than the other way around, so I struck a bargain with myself. If something new came in, something old would have to go. If something needed special care, it was off the list. I was good for awhile, but being the pack rat of "things that will be good for a future art project," the stuff just kept piling in.
Who could resist the bargains at Goodwill or on closeout? What about all those interesting "found objects" (read: junk; garbage) that would look great in the next piece of art I want to create? I need things to carry things around in, containers to store things in, shelves to put them on . . . . and on it goes!
Maybe for next year, I will resolve to use all the things I have in my studio before bringing in anything new materials. Yeah, maybe . . . . .
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