Too much
I’m cleaning the art room. Deep cleaning.
No guests will be in the guest bedroom for the foreseeable future, so I’m using it as a decision area. Moving all paper supplies into that room. Then I’ll go through them and choose only what I really want to move back into the art room. The rest will either be discarded or donated.
Then the fabric, which in some ways is easier.
The paper supplies are really way too much and I moved lots of them here to Maine from Connecticut. Now I see them more as fallout from a busier, more unexamined life. Unnecessary weight on my spirit. Making it unpleasant to go into my art room.
I’m also planning to organize art supplies that are not paper. For awhile I was jumping on every technique or project that came my way. Now I can be more discriminating.
My aspiration? To learn to give more focused attention to what matters to me.
I always have multiple photos to post when I post. There is so much to see and to show. I think it would be good for me to choose one photo and do a little more writing. I’ll give it a try.
I gasped when I noticed this bloom beginning. Monarda punctata, spotted bee balm, one of the native plants I bought this year and planted in the circle garden. It is getting ready to show off. I don’t know what’s going to happen next! The flowers are supposed to be yellow. The woman that sold it to me told me it was not native to Maine, but came from Massachusetts. I bent the rules of my circle garden for it, considering plants will move north with climate change. It joins two other bee balms in my yard.
when we first moved to Texas I spotted a wildflower as I flew down the road to work at 60 mph … in my mind I dubbed it “pagoda plant” and later learned it was horsemint (found here at the National Wildflower Center’s plant database, which is a fabulous resource … https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=moci)
and much as I admire your strategy for weeding art supplies, I’m forever amazed at how my “pantry” of supplies manages to become useful, often long after the acquisition of this thing or that … when I worked at the Texas State university library, the Tech Services folks removed all book covers before cataloging books and stacked the discarded covers in bankers boxes, which were then circulated to interested staff to pick through … I ended up with four boxes full by 2013 and stashed them under a bed in hopes of using them for collage … which I tried for a bit in 2020, then moved on … but now Don is happily rifling through the boxes adding bits of text to his paintings and assemblages … so you never know
I like to use gobotany.nativeplanttrust.orgbecause it’s focused on New England, but your Wildflower Center link offered some new info, like the lemony scent. I’ll have to check! I think the plant is amazing. As far as supplies, I think my ethic of “maybe it will be useful someday” has gone a little too far and I am not comfortable in my art room. Thus – cleaning. “Swedish death cleaning” is now on my mind (preventing my son or other relatives from having to take care of it all).
one big pile of nothings has somehow helped my focus on the moment and also the size of the pile.
I’m inspired by the thought of one big pile of nothings! Maybe someday, after several iterations of clearing things out.
I’ve done the one photo and words (of varying amounts)…but it is hard for me, because each photo shares Something I like or a kind of view or light or part of the story. This is a beautiful flower!
For some reason, I think I should restrain myself with the photos. I take lots that I never post.