Each and every January, I find myself embarking upon the same sort of adventure around my home: Organizing + decluttering.
Adventure might seem like a funny word for this, but for me, that’s exactly what it is…
An adventure into the past, the present, and the future.
Last week, as I pulled a dress I wore as a baby from an old trunk, it wasn’t with the goal of purging my possessions.
My organizing and decluttering adventure takes me on a journey to rediscover the treasures I’ve accumulated over the years.
It’s taking time to admire the old snow shoes hanging on my wall or paging through books on the shelves…
It’s spending an afternoon sorting through drawers full of antique lace and running my fingers over old tatting from ancestors…
It’s wandering around the house organizing collected buttons into mason jars; rearranging old tin pitchers; hanging the hats and vintage clothing in different places.
Some people might look around my house and say I have too much stuff.
I look around my home and say I’m surrounded by stories.
I’ve always loved old, vintage things, well before vintage became a trend.
I feel the energy in them. I appreciate the time spent on them. I imagine the people who had them before me, and then assign them a new story based on my imagination that day.
These old “things” are a connection to the past and an opportunity to reinvigorate objects with new life.
They also make up the treasure chest from which I assemble my still life paintings when our freezing, gray winters take over in upstate New York and I’m forced inside to paint.
(Call me a wimp, but I’ll take my tea, music, and studio heat over bitter cold winds and snow!)
Similar to plein air, though, I set up my still lifes in a way that will tell a story, then work to experiment with the light and color until I can express the light and shadows the same way I would a scene outside.
The baby dress I rediscovered last week is currently laid out in my studio, arranged with great care alongside a bowl + pitcher I found at a yard sale and a primitive washboard from my Irish great grandmother, all set in front of an old chest.
Sometimes I take a few minutes to assemble a still life; sometimes hours; sometimes days.
Then I warm my tea, grab my brushes, and paint the story of those old objects bit by bit in the north light that streams through my studio windows.
It’s with these serene painting sessions in mind that I go through my “clutter” each January.
And it’s in these painting sessions where the art lets the light in, the old becomes new again, and the story continues.