Create, Keep, Destroy?

We have to make art to become better artists. What do we do with all of it?

A favorite shop in Oslo, Too Many Prints, in which I say to myself “I want it all but where do I hang it?”

I’m moving at the end of the summer, so I spent some time this week going through old art, books, and assorted other creative snippets that can be found in a studio. Scraps of paper with notes on them, postcards from friends, unfinished pieces, promotional brochures from museum visits that were kept for design inspiration because the fonts looked cool.

Most of the stuff had been on walls, or on an overflowing corkboard next to my desktop computer. One of those “here is a place to pin things that are inspiring” and then the inspiration turns into layers that need to be excavated, like you’re an archeologist going through the history of your own creative life.

I filled an enormous cardboard box and moved it from my home office space to my studio. When it was too hot to sleep that night, I thought about the box. If I taped the whole thing up I probably would never give any of it a second thought. In a tired, heat-induced haze, I made a commitment to myself: get rid of it.

The next afternoon, the temperatures rose in the studio, too warm to do any thinking or writing. I eyed the box. Now was the time. In a flurry I went through the whole thing, recycling old papercuts, drawings, random watercolors that I didn’t like. Almost all of it went into the recycling bin. Old printing blocks from over a decade ago? Into the trash can.

It was liberating and depressing all at the same time.