Collections

Last week, I mentioned to my small group that I’m stuck. I’m stuck real bad, and that’s okay. My ‘windows’ are also closed, and its getting pretty musty in my head. The crit group helped me crack them just a tiny bit, and I’m hoping getting home will help me push open those windows and get some fresh air. 

I’ve currently been taking a step away from my attempts to piece apart sexuality and related subjects, and have instead been delving into what I need to make. Right now I'm making things because I need to. Because it's comforting me. Because it makes me feel better. Because it gets rid of this tiny fork dragging its prongs up and down against the chalkboard behind my eyeballs. What does all this art add up to? Does it become a comfort zone? 

What if I made a comfort zone?? No. I can’t. It’s too personalized and not right, albeit intriguing as an idea.

What about my other weird itches that I have? I collect things because I need to. I cling to things because I need to. I have all these things because I need them. Because they're physical fragments of memories and events. Because it gives me something real aside from my memory. Is that why I need them? Is that why I am attached? Maybe I'm attached to ideas of visualizing things that aren't visible. My eclectic collections are all connected to memories that I didn't want to just have mentally stored. I needed them physically too. To look at and admire externally. 

In crit, I brought up somehow that I have weird collections from my childhood. I’m still kind of making these weird collections… dead bugs, old tea, dried leaves, broken bricks, old signs, retired test tubes… 

I can’t stop myself, really. Maybe this is something that I can dig into deeper. Because all of these little weird things that I collect and keep and covet are so hidden from others. Physical, sentimental bits for just me.

What about all those things I have from the past?? What memories do they hold?? Are the memories not yet forgotten? What if they are? I wouldn't know.

And why do I hide those collections? Why am I so ashamed?

What do other people hide? What things?

-Bella