Spring Cleaning Early!

Have you ever discovered that you have collected so many things you thought you could do something with, or make something out of that one day you wake up and survey all this mess and feel hopeless and overwhelmed and just know if you lived to be 200 years old and stopped collecting right now you still wouldn't have the time to do all you proposed to do? Some people overfill their plates with food, others, like artists overfill their plates with materials and objects to use those materials ( paints, fabrics, clay, beads, and every other interesting bit you come across) on , either with an idea already in mind or just knowing that one will come down the road, so get it while the getting's good!

I have found myself in such a predicament. You would think I would have awakened to this five years ago when we moved, out of state no less and maybe if not then, at least when we had to pack it all up and move again three years ago, but Nooooooooooooo, I guess I was still young and naive enough to think I had the time. But now it all seems a burden and I've realized that I really did have that deep down feeling before we moved five years ago. I wanted to move to a tiny little house, small enough to be cleaned in one hour, top to bottom, and just enough room for some clay and nothing else, but it didn't work out that way, with either house, we had room in both for all of it, plus room for guests and more. But it still has managed to overwhelm me to the point of high anxiety and I need to dig myself out from this before it overtakes me.

It has also seriously squelched my creative spirit to the point where I have only done a few new pieces in the past two, three months. This isn't good because the ideas keep coming but I feel too pressured to clean and feel like clay time is play time and more like fooling around so I can't bring myself to go in there. So I have been catching up on paperwork as well as cleaning out. The studio has been 90% rearranged and organized, but you see polymer clay is only one in a long line of materials I have used to express my artistic vein.

I have huge, trunk sized boxes of fabric, mostly quilting cottons but other materials as well. Then I must have at least 3-4oo lbs of stained glass and supplies, and then there's all the paraphernalia that goes with them, the battings, the threads, the paints, dyes, looms, racks, metalwork, patinas, and other chemicals, not to mention all the other tools and such I have for being able to do a bit of this and that for collage making. Then there was the time I wanted to turn everything into a clock. I love clocks, clock faces and things that were meant to be one thing but turned into another. I guess I get that part from my Grandfather, he collected all sorts of things others would throw away without a second thought and then create something really cool with it, but most times it was something useful that he either couldn't find to buy or couldn't' afford to.

So here I am, I couldn't wait to do a yard sale and believe it or not I did have one before moving here from the last house. So things are either going into the trash, or in boxes to Goodwill. I think my husband has been over there at least three times with a large station wagon full each time in the past week or two.

It's looking much better downstairs, where I have my sewing room and also the family room which got taken over. I am relegating myself to the family room ( which is nicer than my sewing room , it is carpeted and heated!) and letting hubby have the sewing room for a woodworking shop.

I still would like to pursue some sewing and maybe tinker with the stained glass, so maybe if its organized and larger, and more comfortable I will be more apt to do so. Meanwhile my clay studio is upstairs in the master bedroom ( we took the guest room, I mean , how much room do you need to sleep?) so it's fairly large ( 16x14) and has plenty of room for my clay and all that goes with that, nice and organized and even room for a little office too ( actually in one of the three closets in there!_).

So that is why you haven't seen too much from me lately, but hopefully this will be over soon and on to doing all those things in my mind and in my sketchbook!