Moving has given me a chance to reconsider and rebuild my surroundings. While generally a good thing, it also raises questions. Of course there’s some clutter in my room, yet: some favorite pieces sit among other important and less-important objects. The dresser. Two tone drums, a bowl, my sunglasses, a ceramic box I quite like. The floor. Three bowls, a mug, a drawing. My flag, from being in Italy in 2003 or so. (Pace means “peace”.) People had them hung from their windows. A piece of formwork that should go to the studio; my good glasses, in their case. And that galvanized steel construction is from a wall project in fall 2000. Notebook, an art card, mallets, decorative chopsticks.

My Bede bowl is out. I used to keep it empty, but I like how it works with spun wool spaghetti. Linda’s pouring vessel happened to get packed at the same time: though I suppose it belongs downstairs, I’m enjoying having it up here. It’s such an honest piece. And in the middle is a piece of sandstone; was it summer 1998? I went with my best friend and her parents to Cape Hatteras for a week.

But it’s also made me wonder, why am I keeping some of these things? I ended up throwing out the pieces from high school after all, having decided that the photos are enough.

And then here’s a sculpture of a seal on a rock; I made it in sixth grade or so. In the last couple of years it suffered a fall; the seal lost part of its tail and came off the rock. I remember that it was a quick sculpture; my main piece had been a duck, which I labored too hard over. Nope, the seal came out well.

But why am I keeping it? It’s not a great piece of art. The duck was easily discarded, pre-move. But the seal came along. Why? It’s not as though I want to decorate with it. Nonetheless, I’m having problems getting rid of it.

And then, floating around, is a ten-year-old model: my first architecture. I don’t mind having it around, and yet: must we keep it, still? Isn’t it good enough to have the images?

Of course I did title this post, The Questionable Importance of the Artifact, because all this moving stuff has me wondering. Is the object is really the thing that’s important? How long do things need to stick around? What makes one acquire things? And why are they sometimes so hard to part with?