Saturday 18 September 2010

weekend

Today I cleared books, changed where things lived, tidied places, looked at grey-haired cobwebs, chucked out decrepit objects. I am a keeper of physical things. I collect old magazines, buttons, other people's shopping lists, hats, shoes, bits of paper, books, newspapers, 1960's magazines, vintage fabric, worn clothes and second-hand china. I like things people have lived in, objects shaped, metamorphosized through their relationship to us. Stuff which is touched by time. These articles have been smelt, held, sweated on and in, hated, loved, believed in, ignored, chosen and discarded.
I have problems throwing these things away; I imagine that these objects will become a costume, a prop, a collage, a sculpture, refashioned and given, photographed, inspire a story, carry a novel inside their crumpled and stained outer shell. I am attached to their singular identity. Yet, when I clear a space there is a sense of carthasis, of a cleansing, of a purging.
Everything needs to change.