lately i seem to lose everything. it all started about six months or so ago, i lost my favorite scarf... a beautiful black scarf with silver stars all over it... i am a little obsessed with stars and this was the first scarf i'd ever seen with stars on it that wasn't cheesy. i loved it... i wore it every day for years. all winter... all summer.... it went with me on many trips and served as more than just a scarf... it came in handy many times. after that scarf went missing... it seemed i lost something every couple of weeks. the only thing these missing items have in common really, is that they were all dear to me in some way. a favorite sweater, the only pair of sunglasses that ever really looked good on me and functioned properly, a photo of my mom i always kept in my wallet and even the scarf that was growing as a close runner up replacement to the star scarf... now all missing.
i don't really spend a lot of money on anything i own. i managed ragstock for years so all of my clothing is seriously priced under $20. it's just years of savvy shopping/collecting. for a few years i bought items at auction and sold them on ebay almost full time. i would roll up in my 1978 el camino (ya pretty kewl) and load the back up with random antiques that i would get at a fraction of the cost. i became really good at wading through the junk and finding things that sold for a fair amount of money. i loved most parts of that. the auction houses... filled with crotchity old men in dirty clothes... eating $2 hot dogs... seeing who could wait it out til the bitter end when things were the cheapest. they were always bickering over a dollar here and a dollar there. i learned to be very sly in my bidding. my favorite "lots" to win were the $5 or sometimes $1 boxes... take them home, dump them on the kitchen floor and sort... and sort and sort. i learned a lot that way. i would consult stacks of books or the internet or sometimes an antique shop owner in town. but, the thing i learn most of all from years of sifting through estate after estate of objects... was that you don't take anything with you. i hate estate sales because you walk into someone's home... all the cupboards and drawers opened up... it's so invasive... like they just stepped out for lunch and we're rifling through their stuff.
i like that life isn't about "stuff" ... i was lamenting the loss of my latest missing object... a favorite sweater i left when dancing a week or so back... and my friend said... now there's room for new stuff. how true. i frequently paint over my canvas when i tire of or outgrow some of my work. it feels good to let go.
i think "lost and found" boxes are so interesting for this same reason. what do people leave behind... what do they bother going back for? i remember one time over a decade ago i went rollerskating with a boyfriend. i left my sweater at the rink (maybe 30 miles away) i was content letting it go... he drove back for it... delivering it to me heroically... and although i was touched, i thought it silly.
all of this is sparked by my discovery yesterday that a couple of my favorite paintings- that i'd rolled up and tossed into a storage room.... had since frozen and cracked in this cold weather. i guess you can't store acrylic on canvas, rolled up in sub zero temperatures for long.... good to know. i kind of liked the way they looked today, when i pressed them down flat, cracked and broken. they are old after-all... i guess it's time to let them go.
i don't really spend a lot of money on anything i own. i managed ragstock for years so all of my clothing is seriously priced under $20. it's just years of savvy shopping/collecting. for a few years i bought items at auction and sold them on ebay almost full time. i would roll up in my 1978 el camino (ya pretty kewl) and load the back up with random antiques that i would get at a fraction of the cost. i became really good at wading through the junk and finding things that sold for a fair amount of money. i loved most parts of that. the auction houses... filled with crotchity old men in dirty clothes... eating $2 hot dogs... seeing who could wait it out til the bitter end when things were the cheapest. they were always bickering over a dollar here and a dollar there. i learned to be very sly in my bidding. my favorite "lots" to win were the $5 or sometimes $1 boxes... take them home, dump them on the kitchen floor and sort... and sort and sort. i learned a lot that way. i would consult stacks of books or the internet or sometimes an antique shop owner in town. but, the thing i learn most of all from years of sifting through estate after estate of objects... was that you don't take anything with you. i hate estate sales because you walk into someone's home... all the cupboards and drawers opened up... it's so invasive... like they just stepped out for lunch and we're rifling through their stuff.
i like that life isn't about "stuff" ... i was lamenting the loss of my latest missing object... a favorite sweater i left when dancing a week or so back... and my friend said... now there's room for new stuff. how true. i frequently paint over my canvas when i tire of or outgrow some of my work. it feels good to let go.
i think "lost and found" boxes are so interesting for this same reason. what do people leave behind... what do they bother going back for? i remember one time over a decade ago i went rollerskating with a boyfriend. i left my sweater at the rink (maybe 30 miles away) i was content letting it go... he drove back for it... delivering it to me heroically... and although i was touched, i thought it silly.
all of this is sparked by my discovery yesterday that a couple of my favorite paintings- that i'd rolled up and tossed into a storage room.... had since frozen and cracked in this cold weather. i guess you can't store acrylic on canvas, rolled up in sub zero temperatures for long.... good to know. i kind of liked the way they looked today, when i pressed them down flat, cracked and broken. they are old after-all... i guess it's time to let them go.
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