Objects of Desire

I don't really want an art object that is a crane woven from what? Paper? Vinyl? Glass? I don't know. I didn't go into the shop. I just stole the image of it, added my camera-obscured visage and put it here. But thousands of objects, arty and otherwise, are in my possession or control. Dealing with them, their value, their weight and their emotional freight consumes a lot of my time.

Even my images, like this one, weigh down the hard drive, obscure other pictures. The more you have the less you can concentrate and cherish one thing.

When we moved we let stuff go. And go. And go. Lots and lots of stuff. I love a lot of what's left. That painting there. That book. My coffee machine. Some of my clothes. New Italian furniture we acquired. Even now we have to stay on top of things because we kept so much (or acquired the perfect object for this space) that the condo is pretty full. When we add something it threatens us.

Since we moved we acquired two new art works. We had to eject another work to hang one of them. I think the rejected one ended up in our condo storage cage. We managed to work out a space for the other new one. At one time we had several hefty sculptures. And some life-sized ones in the yard. No more.

I rarely see things I desire these days. But I must confess that I take a peek at most of the catalogs that come in and stare at ads in newspapers and magazines. And sometimes a desire is created, but, more often I see a possible burden. And some resistance ensues. I wish I could impose the 'one in, one out' rule. You know where if you buy a new outfit or new shoes then something old has to go. Instead I wait until things are out of control and get rid of piles of things. Or I find places to tuck the goods and wait, as my dad and my mom did, for someone else to deal with it when I'm gone. Six years ago I created a (of course incomplete) list of objects I owned in my blog. It would be interesting to review it and see if I still have the stuff and if I can even remember what happened to it if not.