Let it go, let it go

Can't hold it back anymore

Goodness but I do love the BBC’s ‘Sort Your Life Out’. (I will add an explanatory footnote at the bottom of this newsletter for anyone who is unfamiliar with the programme). I very much want Stacey to come and be kind and patient and understanding and breathe new life into my home, though I suspect (hope) my house is not quite bad enough to interest the producers. While there is admittedly a pile of clothes on the spare room bed waiting for an indeterminate charity shop or car boot sale, and there is an unopened box in the garage from when we moved in 25 years ago, we do not have to sit on the floor because the sofa is covered in laundry, the bath is not being used as storage and we can at least actually get into the garage (with care).

I’m Jane and I’m a hoarder. Many factors including a fear of environmental damage, being brought up to regard waste as a mortal sin and having some treasured possessions taken from me in childhood, mean I now find it very hard to let go of anything. I fear I might lose part of myself, or forget someone or something, or be personally responsible for the end of planet if I throw away a toothbrush.

This is bad news if you work in an art form which involves lots of paper. Lots and lots of paper. So many test prints. So many mistakes. And quite apart from the damage to the environment, that paper and ink was EXPENSIVE. And don’t get me started on all the hours of work represented by those bits of paper; if I throw away the results then I’ve wasted that time too, right? (Did someone say Sunk Cost Fallacy?).

The hoarding has been made more visible in the last few weeks by two things. First of all I had to pull out my studio workbench so my husband could fix some shelves to the wall above it (behold their organisational beauty below).

Everything here used to be spread on the bench below - now look how tidy it is. (The name sign is not in case I forget who I am; it’s part of my current York Open Studios display).

This revealed a stash of portfolios and bags stuffed underneath. They included an oil painting on board I started more than twenty years ago and never finished, and watercolour sketches from a trip in 2007. I didn’t even know I had these. I had forgotten they existed. So surely I don’t need to keep them? But, but…….

And then I had to tidy up my whole studio for York Open Studios. One corner looked like this. More carrier bags of paper. These carrier bags are now in the spare room, along with the clothes waiting to go….somewhere.

Yes it was this bad. Yes I am embarrassed.

I’m making light of it here (it’s what I do) but the clutter genuinely upsets me. I have to find a way to get over the terror of disposing of it. While wrestling with this, I wondered how creatives in other areas manage and it occurred to me that cooks and bakers don’t have the option of hoarding. If a recipe is inedible it has to go in the bin. A curdled sauce is immediately poured down the sink even if it did take two eggs and half a pot of cream. A cook doesn’t hang on to an incinerated steak just because it cost £14 and took two hours to marinate. Food writers’ kitchens do not have corners filled with carrier bags containing unrisen cakes and split custards.

I am going to try to imagine that my forgotten and/or failed works are perishable and a health hazard. In fact you could plausibly say they are a mental health hazard. I will see if this makes it possible for me to release them into the paper and card skip at the tip (sorry, I mean the ‘Household Recycling Centre’).

If you have discovered any mental gymnastics that help to tackle hoarding, do share them in a comment. I know I won’t be the only one who is grateful.

By serendipity, while I was writing this newsletter* the cartoon below by the wonderful Moose Allain appeared in my Twitter feed to remind me of the trope of writers screwing up rejected drafts and throwing them in the bin. Do they keep all those sheets in a pile just in case they might be useful or because the paper cost money?
NO JANE THEY DO NOT.
Click on the image to see the tweet and discover more Moose delights.

*getting distracted by Twitter

© Moose Allain

York Open Studios

The first weekend of York Open Studios has happened (in a tidy studio). It was a delight to meet so many interested and interesting visitors. Thank you if you were one of them, and if you are one of those who subscribed to this Substack after visiting then a special thank you and I will try not to disappoint.

I and nearly 160 other York artists will be doing it all again for the second and final time in 2023 this weekend, 22nd- 23rd April. Visit working studios and find out more about how we make our art. Ask questions, poke around and buy art direct from the person who made it. As well as current and recent work so new it isn’t on my website yet, I also have a HALF-PRICE sale of older (pre 2020) work, both framed and unframed.

For full information about the 100+ studios that will be open, click the button below.

I’ll be back next week with a quick reminder about Printfest which is happening over the last weekend of April. Meanwhile do let me know your secrets for keeping clutter at bay and maybe share this post with others?

See you soon

Jane

Sort Your Life Out - a summary
The format of this glorious programme is that Stacey Solomon (kind and empathetic) visits a house with her team: Dilly (organiser), Iwan (cleaner) and Rob (carpenter). The house is always filled with disorganised clutter and invariably occupied by a pleasant family or individual. There are often children and long working hours at the root of the chaos, though sometimes other life-disrupting factors like illness or bereavement have caused things to derail. Every single item is removed from the property and laid out in a massive warehouse, so the subjects can see that they have accumulated 82 pairs of trainers, 4 vacuum cleaners (3 broken), 427 DVDs and 3,281 odd socks. They are encouraged to reduce these piles by at least 50% (or by 100% in the case of odd socks), which is often difficult and revealing of underlying issues. Finally their heavily pruned possessions are restored to their newly cleaned and reconfigured home. There are of course shrieks and tears of joy. It sounds like it could be cheap exploitative voyeurism but it is in fact uplifting and encouraging, and quietly offers insights into how we get ourselves in this state. Unlike some other cleaning and tidying reality programmes, there is no disapproval or ridicule, only kindness. If you have access to BBC iPlayer I recommend it.