J is for junk

Junk tends to creep up on me. I keep little bits and bobs of things, knowing that they might someday be useful, kind of a like a refugee from the Great Depression born fifty years too late. It doesn’t help that I have an affection for found-object art and aspire to one day make something that doesn’t look merely like a bunch of stuff attached to other stuff, but is cohesive and feels like it has a deeper meaning.

Junk isn’t always useful, though. Sometimes it’s just being too lazy to make a decision about something, or getting around to actually disposing of it properly. A recent mouse incident in our garage ended with me spending half a day sorting out one specific corner of the garage that had become a catch-all for indecision.

That corner houses, among other things, my show supplies, which tend to end up and stay in a random pile when I unpack after a show, and which themselves need a thorough sorting out and purge once the weather gets a little nicer. I need to add a to-do to my show project list that includes sorting through them a few days later and putting them back where they belong, rather than wherever is most convenient.

I had been saving wine bottles for an artsy friend who uses them, but she twice cancelled pick-up dates and in the meantime they had grown cobwebs and dust and who knows what all, so into the recycle bin they went. Lots of broken-down cardboard boxes ended up there, too.

There were boxes of things to take to Goodwill, a couple of stray tools, paintbrushes that didn’t get put back into the painting things box, and the like.

(I am absolutely terrible when things are piled in front of other things. It’s the kiss of death for ever putting anything away.)

I was able to get that corner sorted out, but have several more to go. I’m looking forward to having my nephew’s help as soon as the weather cooperates and we can take absolutely everything out, clean, and put it all back in a way that makes sense.