The Crime Scene: The Storage Cottage... MY Storage Cottage to be exact. "I thought you cleaned this whole place out", they said... "What happened?" Last October I had Purged the entire Cottage you see, with the Intention of making the Storage Cottage into my Art Studio Cottage since The Son was still occupying my Art Studio Cottage at the time and it seemed he would never move out. It was an Epic Purge, the place was practically emptied of it's contents and looked so empty and spacious, like a Blank Canvas to begin Creating upon.
But then The Son did move out of my Old Art Studio Cottage... as did the other Temporary Resident... and so now it was finally Vacant and I could reclaim it, Hopefully for good!!! Which meant I also now had an emptied Storage Cottage on the other end of our Acreage with all this empty Space that wasn't gonna become my Art Studio after all... and for those of us who are Hopeless Hoarders of Fabulous Finds... well, you know what a Temptation that is don't you?! *LOL* We almost can't stand having EMPTY SPACE that COULD BE filled with Fabulous Found Treasures! After all, our Homes are usually already at Saturation Point for having been amply Decorated and Styled... which leaves us with a perpetual Overage of Fab Stuff that will either be rotated or Flipped and needs to be Housed Somewhere, right?!
And after all... I do have two Showrooms to keep stocked with Inventory... so it's hard to pass up what you Love AND could Turn a Profit when you need to replenish Inventory, right? *Winks* Plus there is the perpetual Upgrading of what you Plan to Keep to now replace lesser Treasures that you're willing to Let Go of and pass along... now that you've replaced them with something you Love better! *Smiles* Come on, you know you do that too, I'm not the Lone Ranger here in my Affliction! *LOL*
You see, I was born with the Gift... or Curse... of being a Good Picker. I not only Love doing it, but I'm Good at it... I really am... and the Urge to do it is strong because I almost Feel Purposed to be doing it. I always have, from as far back as I can remember, been in my height of Glory when I'm Junquing, Salvaging, Picking, Rescuing, Finding Homes for and Creating with this Cool Old Stuff!
I don't even need to Keep it all... so perhaps I'm not a True Hoarder... or perhaps I'm one of the lower levels of being one... say a Stage One or Two? *Winks* I just know that I used to consider myself an Incurable Collector... but lets face it, my Collections transcended the Norm and didn't really fit the definition of Collecting. *LOL*
And I knew this by how most Normal People reacted to my vast Collections, they either stood in Awe or perhaps it was in Horror, of the sheer magnitude of the Inventory of Antiques, Salvage Architecture and Vintage Collectibles I had amassed in a Personal Collection! *Bwahaha!*
Sure, in the Home almost everything had a place... so it's not as if there were piles of Wow that you had to navigate around... usually... because eventually what I couldn't find a place for would be sequestered in the Storage Areas or Sold Off because I couldn't stand to have so much clutter for long that didn't have Placement or Purpose, it was too embarrasing and downright Shameful to me. I knew I had Excess of these 'Things'... but since they weren't Worthless Junk or Trash, I could Justify it in my own Head as a Sane thing to do and have. *Winks* But then it was Questionable, wasn't it, did Sane people actually have a Hoard of say, Antique Chairs and Old Salvaged Doors?
Granted, being also an Artist, I could always Envision what many of these Treasures COULD BE... once Upcycled, Recycled, Repurposed or made into Art Forms. So then it was almost like having a Cache of Art, Decorating, Styling and Restoration SUPPLIES... yeah, that's what my Hoard of Lovelies now was... SUPPLIES for Future Projects, Artistic Creations, Events, Inventory or Redecorating! *Bwahaha!*
But the Truth of the matter is... I just Enjoyed looking at them, possessing them, Rescuing them, Saving them... and more importantly HUNTING for them... yes, the Thrill Of The Hunt... it's a Rush like any Drug and just as Addictive if it's your 'Thing'!
And the Older I got, the more Important it now became to me to become even more of a Keeper Of The Past. Most especially since so much of it was being Lost or not Valued by so many others and was disappearing from the Landscape or couldn't be had like it once was.
I was rather Proud of myself for having Accumulated some things way before they even Trended and became more Valued and therefore more Valuable, again or for the first time... as the resurgence of popularity for whatever it was peaked and demand exceeded supply for the Real Deal. I mean, who else had been Hoarding... um, I mean Collecting Vintage Feather and Down Pillows in every Ticking Fabric known to Man?!? And I had a mountain of them... we could have a Mosh Pit of them in fact... I felt practically like a Visionary!!! *LOL*
But it was never all about the Benjamins for me really, or what was now Popular and Acceptable to Society to be doing... because long before it became more Acceptable and Popular to do this, I was doing it... you know, when other people though you were completely Nuts and it seemed as though nobody 'Got It'... or you for that matter... because you were an exception to the rule and rather an Oddity in Society. Mostly you were met with raised eyebrows about the Things that made your pulse race and you were Treasuring and stockpiling with Euphoria!
I can't even begin to tell you how much of a Relief and how Liberating it was for me when I began to Discover that there WERE others like me... who got the same Rush and had the same proclivities and Passion for not only the Process, but the Product. People I could actually converse with about these things, activities, Vision and topics that have Excited me for so long, because they Felt it too in one form or another. Perhaps we wouldn't necessarily have Identical Aesthetics about it... but we were indeed Kindred Spirits and Simpatico Souls and there was no Judgment.
Maybe they didn't Collect Architectural Salvage and a hand-hammered Faucet on the original Porcelain Sink 'Scored' for FREE wasn't what they would have done backflips over and had an Adrenalin Rush upon Dicovering... but there WOULD be SOMETHING in the way of a Found Treasure they had in their Archives of Stories on the Thrill Of The Hunt that would be comparable at least. They would have Felt what you Felt, the Excitement and Thrill would have been equalled.
These were peeps you could bring over to your Personal Crime Scene and rather than be Speechless for a Negative reason *LOL* they would be Appreciating it all... giving you a High Five and Believing it was an Enviable Cache of Treasures too that you had Lovingly accumulated.
They wouldn't be like The Others... the Ones that would look at your Beloved 100+ year old Salvaged Wood Fencing Cache in the most Magnificent Hue of early 1900's Turquoise and say, "Hey, if you need me to Help you haul all that to the curb on bulk garbage day, just give me a Holla, Okay?" *Gasp, insert me clutching my chest and more than Grateful they didn't do me any 'Favors' by Secretly clearing out my Property of such Stuff and Surprising me with the Results... that would give me an Actual Heart Attack or Stroke! LOL* Yes, this has happened to me before, which is why I'm mentioning it... you must Exercise Great Caution with Whom you're Sharing your Glorious Hoard with lest they do a well intended Intervention or Clearance on your behalf! *Arghhhhh!!!*
Instead of seeing a Vintage Shell backed Motel Chair festooned with Sweet Potato Vine as a thing of Beauty... they might prune away the 'Overgrowth' for you and figure that since obviously the Old Chair hadn't been sat in for ages, you mustn't really need or want it so they'll haul it away for you as a Good Samaritan and you'll be so Surprised and Happy!!! They almost can't wait for you to see what they've done while you were away... Ta Da! Surprised... YES... Happy... are you freakin' kiddin' me?!?! By now you're wondering how much Time you'll have to Serve if you Thank them in the way your Impulses and Emotions want to?!? While you're picking your sinking stomach up off the floor that it hit when you realized what they'd done and barely contained your initial Hysteria!!! BTW: No, this particular Chair and Vine didn't meet with that Fate... but I can't recount what did, it still gives me Eternal Heartache!
Thankfully, though The Man doesn't have the proclivity for Hoarding or Picking quite like I do, he has always Enjoyed the Process enough to often go with me and know what would make my Heart Sing when he was out and about on some Grand Adventure and would Surprise me with what he'd 'Scored' on my behalf. Once it was even a Cast Iron Bathtub he found while Scouting for Javelina before a Hunt! But it could be as Simple as an Old Brick with embossed letters on it or an Old Bottle Fragment or Pottery Shard that had baked in the Desert for Lord knows how long and will become a Future Art Project.
Even though I've never smoked... I was Jazzed when my Dad gave me his Antique Pedestal Ashtray off his back Porch one year... knowing it would probably never see another cigarrette butt, but would still have Pride of Place on our Front Porch... even many years after he Passed. My Parents not only Encouraged my Passions, they Shared them... so it must be in The Blood?!?
The Rusty, Chippy and the Crusty has always Appealed to me... Rust is one of my Favorite Colors and Patina is one of my Favorite Words!
The Man once stopped by a Harvested Cotton Field and picked me some Cotton Branches that he gleened from the parameter of the newly Harvested and now barren Field and I was just as Happy as if he'd bought me a Dozen Roses! He knows me that well after all these years.
Mosaic... well, it has Purposed even the tiniest of Pottery or Glass Shards that were Saved...
And I don't know how many of you have the Skeletons of Old Lawn Furniture with Wild Garden Growth reclaiming them on your Property, but we do and I see it as a Thing of Beauty and Garden Art of sorts... until such time as the pieces will be Restored, Repurposed or Reupholstered and put into Use again some other way. Until then they are Garden Sentinals and always have a Back Story that Evokes a Memory of that particular Pick.
Some Special Things came with the Property... the Family that built it at the turn of the Century had Salvage and Art in their veins as well... and since Resources were scarce in the Wild, Wild West back then, it wasn't so Peculiar to Scavenge what you Needed or Wanted. Use it up, wear it out, make do or do without was more the Mantra and Way Of Life back then.
And other Things... well, they keep being Found and Rescued by Yours Truly... because since I do have Acreage, there is plenty of room for them to be Stored without being an Eyesore or even visible from the road. American Pickers would probably call our Property a Honeyhole... and if Mike and Frank ever did stop by on the Arizona Trail, well, I could definitely load them up if they were seeking what I've been Hoarding! *Winks*
So much of it I don't really have any Sentiment or Attachment to... and even if it was a Future Project yet to get around to... I'm aware that I'd have to be Immortal to utilize everything I've got a Vision for Creating something Cool out of. *Winks*
And even though the Great Edit and Purge is still in full swing... and I have been Successfully Simplifying and Letting Go... I also realize that I shall probably always have a predisposition to hopeless Hoarding of Fabulous Finds... right up to the End. Because it's not only what I do... it's an intrical part of who I am at my Core I suppose, because I couldn't Imagine NOT doing it. And I wouldn't want to.
How about you my Friends? Do you 'Feel' me, can you relate?
Blessings from the Arizona Desert... Dawn... The Bohemian