Have you ever had to have "the talk" with yourself? No - not the S-E-X talk. The S-T-U-F-F talk is what I mean. That's when you have to tell yourself (sometimes repeatedly) that you have enough STUFF already and you don't need another pencil, pen, tube of paint, bit of ephemera, or whatever the stuff happens to be at the moment. I've had this talk with myself over and over this year. Expenses are higher, income is smaller (lost my PT income). But the real breaking point for me is there is just no more space to put the stuff I keep bringing into this house! And I live alone in a 3 BR house with a huge attic and full basement so there just is no excuse for this. Also driving this new clarity for me is that I've been working all year, a little at a time, on cleaning out parts of my parents home in preparation for selling it. I'm seeing the detritus of 50+ years in one home and while I'm tickled to find things my mom saved, like our letters to Santa, written 40 yrs or more ago, there are things that I'm wading through that just didn't have to be saved all these years. Like every bill they ever paid. Like every old DayTimer filler from 30 yrs. of business calendaring. All this sorting through the bits of a lifetime is making me take a long hard look at my own home and the things I choose to save. And, as I discovered this afternoon, when I removed the cartoon-y band aid from the site of my flu shot, and I thought - "hmmm - I should use this in a journal layout - it would be cool to have this little bit of my DNA immortalized along with my thoughts for the day" - then I realized, ok kid, you
definitely have gone OVER the edge if you are thinking about keeping a used band aid as fodder for artwork! Yes, I know - EVERYTHING can be recycled or upcycled and everything is fair game for our artistic creations. But enough is enough! So tonight I am having "the talk" with myself, yet again. Sigh. I'd be interested in hearing how (or where) you draw the line on the "stuff" you choose to keep for your art.
