It's just crap

The crap pictured here is not my crap, thankfully. 

Over and over again, I think 'if it isn't crafted with exceptional skill and of quality materials and, hasn't been passed down with an explanation which adds a value, an object is just crap.' And even then, sentimentality does not add an actual value to an object. It's just crap. 

Moving into this house with the daunting task of sorting out the crap from the wheat, moving my own stuff down here and now living with all of it for a year, most of it really is crap. I have managed to knock a big ass hole in the mountains of crap, the bigger stuff is gone. Now I'm working on the smaller aggregate of crap. Through the last few months I've made an effort to sort accordingly or shit-can the crap. I could find something in any room of the house at any moment that qualifies. It truly amazes me how much crap we amass in a very short time period. 

I'm opening my own bins and trying to sort through stuff that was packed in haste many years ago and has been moved a number of times until I had a home to unpack the stuff. It's overwhelming. I open bins to find completely disconnected items thrown together and I don't know what to do - I shut down a little, put the lid back on and move on. Frustratingly, all of my bins are like this. I'm working towards having some all-together empty bins to toss things into as I find them so they can begin to be organized or made to leave the house. 

One of the trickiest things for me is that I'm a do it yourselfer. I'm your asshole friend that proclaims "I can make that better" to everything you or I want to buy when we go shopping together (unless it's vintage or quality retro). I save things to make other things and have a whole classification of stuff that I justify as "material goods". The trick being if I use it to make a craft project then I've just made crap with my bare hands. I would love to make decor for my mythical dream house, but since I don't live in my dream house I'd be making crap. If I make stuff to contribute to the comfort and beauty of my present home, as soon as I leave it the stuff I've made for this place becomes crap. You see the problem here? I'm a crap generating machine. I could write artist statements to accompany the stuff thus transforming the object from crafty crap to Art - I am an Artist after all. I could go through my entire house assigning Arty Bullocks to everything I've ever made. That is a good idea, admit it. 

All those Christmas cards, letters, uncurated photos, crap. All of the, two steps from being finished projects, crap. All of the upcycled or reconditioned stuff, crap (polished turds, really). Duplicates that are not a set... whittle down to the minimum and get rid of the rest, unless it's a bag of diamonds it's probably crap (anybody need a sewing machine? I have a nice Elna or a Viking for sale). Somehow I have 10 bed pillows! I will make throw pillows out of them because I am capable of exceptional skill in that department, therefore they will not be crap except then I will have twice as many cushions as I had superfluous bed pillows, I'm not sure how I feel about that (maybe I'll attach artist statements to them). 

I keep talking about the Great Crap Reduction Program, it's underway and moving along well enough, even though at times it's completely overwhelming. Maybe in addition to my Get Rid of Something Everyday Program I'll also undertake a Finish My Abandoned Projects Program and a Make Something With All of My Crap Program - this might be tough with my school projects which will lead to a Bachelors Degree in Making Animated Crap.... switching to Contemporary Animated Arts probably isn't going to help my Crap Reduction Program, making the kind of work I have been doing generates even more crap than you could possibly imagine (unless you're an animator and know what I'm talking about). Those tissue paper pom-poms I want to make because the look like a fun way to decorate, crap. I'm kind of disappointed that so much of what I want to make my space joyful is infact crap. Perhaps I can find a balance... Shabby Modern or Modern Bohemian or realistically DIY Crap. 

So this is my singular goal-set (outside of school) for 2012, get rid of the crap.