Earth Stories, Part Three

Earth Stories, Part Three

Excerpt from my journal....
"I have a record collection of 310 records and no system set up to play them.  It is in the closet along with the records.  And if I could, would I choose to listen to the old songs?  Apparently not because I am drawn towards the new songs on my iPod or the radio.  But still...I keep the records, memories of my previous life.  The real question is WHY is it so important to keep those old memories?  There is something inexplicitly comforting in knowing that they are there, but I can't find the logic of it.  Split between logic and heart, once again."

I can say that knowing how hard it is to get rid of Stuff, helps me accumulate less new Stuff in the present time.

Back to less thinking and more counting.  Bleah.
I finished my bedroom.  2420.  Seriously??  I am having a bit of a panic attack.  My room is not cluttered.  I have a bed, 2 side tables, and 2 chests with drawers for clothes (and apparently a lot of other stuff).  This number does not include my closet.  Sigh.  How can there be so many objects in my room?  And if this is how many objects in a relatively simple, and clean, and uncluttered room, what about the closets, and my studio, and the garage, and the kids' rooms?  I am starting to wonder if my final number will be a million?

Along my counting journey, I have run across another artist, Todd McLellan.  He has a series called "things come apart".   It is art made from an object taken apart and all the pieces laid out in a beautiful assemblage of the thing.... like this bicycle.

His art is beautiful and inspiring.  Click the link in his name and see his other works.  The chain saw is pretty cool too!  And it reaffirms my counting rules.  I do not want to count all the pieces used to make up a single object.  But some one, some where, had to make each one of these pieces to make a bicycle...

And then there is 42-year-old photographer Juan Kingzhun, who spent about 10 years, trying to drive around 33 Chinese provinces to take a pictures of a poor families with all their belongings on the background.  It is all about perspective, isn't it?  I never felt affluent before.  Even with all my stuff, I admit there are times when I worry that I won't have enough money when I need it.  I find these photos both comforting and disturbing.  How can they get by with so little? Why do I think I need so much? Although, honestly, I don't usually think about it.  I usually acquire lots of things because I am NOT thinking about it.

 Back to counting and counting and counting.  It takes days, weeks, and months.  There is something disturbing about that too.  

Thanks for stopping by.  At some point, there really will be an art quilt that springs from all this misery.