Minimalist-Me
“Minimalism
isn’t about removing the things you love. It’s about removing the things that
distract you from the things you love.”
Joshua
Becker
I’ve
spent the past two days straightening up my studio. Sometimes messiness is a
result of the creative process being in full swing, and sometimes it’s just,
well, messiness. Now and then, my tendency to go through bins of fabric,
paints, threads, brushes, and various other paraphernalia of art and then lay
them down and leave them, catches up with me. I find myself up to my neck in
stacks of this and that, and of course, I can’t find what I’m looking for because
it’s buried under one of my stacks. Then, I spend half-hour searching, moving
things around, trying to backtrack to when I last used whatever it is. Before long,
I can’t remember what I was doing in the first place and…where are my glasses,
anyway. Perhaps you’re familiar with this syndrome.
That’s
when I become a minimalist. I spend a couple of days going through and getting
rid of “stuff.” I mean, how many dried-up containers of gesso do I really need?
I have scraps of scraps and a million selvages torn from long-forgotten fabrics
that are bagged for the next time I make a rope basket. It’s one thing to have
them in a bag labeled “strips and selvages” and quite another to have them flung
about my cutting table and every other flat surface in the room. In addition to
them, there are straight pins, finger-long strips of ribbon snipped off and left
where they fell, paperclips, kneaded erasers, dog toys, and... you get the
picture. No one can create in that mess. At least, I can’t.
A few
years ago, I called a local auction house and asked them to come get all the antiques
I still had. I needed the space and rarely even looked at them. Being of practical
temperament, I don’t keep things that I don’t use, nor do I continue acquiring
things when I have “plenty” of whatever it is. Of course, there’s an adjustment
period when I think I have an item, and I look and look and three hour later,
realize I’ve given it away.
Yes, I can find all kinds
of ways to distract myself. And the more stuff that’s in a room, the more ways I
can do just that. So now and then, it’s time to clear the decks. I enjoy the
process once started, because I find things I thought were lost, and rediscover
things I want to keep. (Like a copy of my family tree which has a blank space
in the middle where Joan of Arc’s name is written. No progeny). And when it’s
done, and I’ve swept up the threads and doghair from the floor, it feels just
great to begin a new project in a clean room. Maybe you know what I mean.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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