In praise of collecting

You could argue that hoarding often affects creative types, which I think I many of us can relate to. When I studied photography, a lot of my work involved collage and that kicked off a bit of a habit for collecting endless old illustrated books, magazines, anything with printed text and images basically! I found it very difficult to pass a charity shop or car boots without scouring the shelves for treasure. At the time it was important, working with the stuff of the world, and in my case that was lots of printed imagery. I felt in full flow, armed with a scalpel, cutting out parts of images and creating something new, I was very happy in that place. I think that is what we have to try and understand about those who find it hard to part with things, the collections are of great value and help them make sense of the world, even if it looks like rubbish to everyone else.

I think those spaces are important, bright and interesting. It would be a dull, sterile world otherwise. I really like everything in its place, and room to breathe, but I also miss that creative, chaotic space. I wrote an article on an outsider artist in the Caribbean who collected discarded items left by others, and brought them back to her house to arrange and create with. A creative compulsion, specific and vital to one person, can easily be misunderstood.

Here is an except from the article:

‘Her house from the outside was dressed up like a Christmas tree, with baubles of found objects. Inside she lived in one room and the other acted as a studio gallery almost, a museum which housed an installation of all the found objects she collected. In here, she arranged all of these things into groups, made descisions about placements and what struck me most, was the delicacy of these arrangements. You had to get down low to appreciate the work that has gone on, there was a process going on which allows her to order her world and maybe make sense of it using the bits and pieces that have been left behind.’