Last Friday, I had to clean out and clean up my storage unit. At some point, we had been unloading stuff that was out of season and it had started to rain, which meant that we just dumped what we needed at the moment, FULLY intending to fix it later. Well, later became whenever because we then put stuff in front of the old stuff, and so we ended up with your basic problem.
One of my employees called me a hoarder. I resented this, because I FULLY intended to USE all of those things. Or create with them later. I had an idea. A plan. A vision.
I also had a whole heck of a lot of stuff. And as a crafty creative person, parting with any of it was really really REALLY (did I mention really?) hard.
This is not something new for me. I kept scraps of pretty paper when I was little, because I might one day do something with it. And I might, eventually, but I also just really liked the pretty paper (and there is nothing wrong with not making something functional but just liking it for the pretty thing that it is) (did that sound convincing?). I made an entire doll house and furniture and curtains and rugs from scraps and this and that. I’ve always been a maker, and putting together things is what I do.
WHICH is why it is so hard for me to get rid of things. And everyone I know who creates is also, to some degree, a hoarder. We can see the potential in something that maybe we don’t have time to make right that very minute. But we see it.
I won’t mention some of the things that I found in there and that I really should be getting rid of. Or maybe I did get rid of them, because I did. Some things. It was hard and I didn’t like it so I’ve blocked the unpleasantness from my memory.
So we spent a hot Friday in August taking everything out and putting back ONLY what we needed – out of season holiday items, props, samples, things like that. But we also have a lot, and I mean a LOT, of pottery that we I need to let someone else paint.
And that’s why we are having a Paint Til You Faint event. Your gain is also my gain, because I need someone to paint these not-so-perfect pieces and let them have a new home.
I hope you can join me. I’ll probably have a story or two I can tell you about the pieces I have out that night. I will do my best to not sneak things back into my storage unit. But I’m not making any promises.
