The first rule of artistic housekeeping is simple: never throw anything away. The second rule is more complicated: never admit that you have kept it.
A respectable person sees an empty jam jar and thinks, “Recycling.” An artist sees a future lantern, miniature greenhouse, paint-water container, jewellery holder, spice museum or possibly the missing component of a sculpture that is not yet conceived. The jar therefore goes into a cupboard, where it joins seventeen other jars waiting for their moment of glory.
The same fate awaits
The same fate awaits cardboard boxes. They are not boxes. They are canvases in disguise. A wine bottle is not a bottle either. It is a vase, lamp base, candlestick, flower holder, or something that will look magnificent once covered in papier-mâché and painted the exact shade of green that does not yet exist. An old wooden spoon can become a wall ornament. A broken frame can become a collage. A curtain ring can become an installation. A piece of driftwood can become art, although nobody is quite sure what sort of art yet.
This is how an artist acquires a private museum without intending to.
The trouble begins
The trouble begins during cleaning. One morning, courage arrives. The cupboard is opened. Objects are examined with the stern expression normally reserved for difficult relatives. “This can go.” The cracked ceramic bowl – Into the discard pile. Then the strange metal thing whose original purpose has been forgotten. Then three ribbons, a collection of buttons and a cardboard tube.
The artist sees the discarded cardboard tube. A terrible thought arrives. “That would have made an excellent handle.” The tube is rescued. The cracked bowl follows five minutes later because it suddenly resembles a mould for something. The metal thing is retrieved because it could be incorporated into a mixed-media piece. The ribbons return because texture matters. The buttons are practically innocent.
Within twenty minutes, the cupboard gets restored to its original condition, except now the artist has also acquired the certainty that everything in it is important. This is where ordinary housekeeping and artistic thinking part company. Housekeeping asks, “When did you last use this?” Art asks, “What if?”
“What if?” is a dangerous question. It has kept generations of artists surrounded by corks, shells, feathers, wire, fabric scraps, dried leaves, stones, old keys, broken jewellery, empty tins and objects that nobody can identify without archaeological assistance.