The other day while we were sitting around 555 on a break, Sasaki-san asked if I had started packing for the move yet. “A little bit,” I replied. But mostly I am thinking about what I want (and don’t want) to take with me.
Right now, I am decluttering my “fantasy selves”. For example, I donated all of my circus props, reference materials, and costumes to Slow Circus, an active social circus project in Japan. I kept a couple of hula hoops and a set of juggling balls to enjoy but everything else is in hands that will use them.
Cocktail dresses and other clothes are on the chopping block. Musical instruments I do not play – they are going. Projects I have abandoned are out the door. Except…
Art supplies and tools. I have sheets of colored glass, enameling frit, printmaking equipment, book binding materials, beads and wire, paint and paper of many types, plus sewing supplies including an entire trunk of fabric. I have no way to finding a rational perspective for keeping them. I barely touch them. So I will try to reduce them, but I am certain art supplies will make up the bulk of personal items that I move to the new house.
Because, despite appearances, art supplies are not for a fantasy self. Art and creative play are the joy I find in life. But I consistently deprioritise them so that I can do the laundry, comfort the cats, shop for and cook meals, organise activities, take out the trash, see my friends, do my paid work, and all the other things that my life requests of me.
I yearn to create. I find excuses not to.
Will carrying the supplies to a fresh start give me the willpower to prioritise art over laundry? Or at least a chance to reclaim the abundant creativity I inherited from my parents?
As I sit here at my desk, which is piled high with wallpaper samples, lighting catalogs, notes, and house sketches it seem impossible. Building a house has been my creative expression for the last two years. Everything else has fallen through the cracks.
I look forward to reclaiming my artistry after we move. And even as I write that, I chastise myself. Do it now. Art and creativity need to be interleaved, not separated from life like a fantasy.
