what to do with all this space
Apr. 24th, 2010 03:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueI have emptied a box and a few small drawers of pencils, some colored and others HB, along with safety scissors, unused erasers, stencils, and so on. All that remains is to go through notebooks and drawing pads to find those that are empty or mostly empty and likely to remain so.
I have always had a somewhat split relationship with art supplies (and before that school supplies), because I like them very much as objects but am not often comepelled to use these adored objects as tools; I love handbound notebooks and elaborate pencil boxes, but these stay pristine unless I force myself to their unnatural use. I do much better with tools I can profane - books I can slam down to kill bugs and pens I can grab when my hands are smudged. Back-to-school shopping meant gorgeous binders and adorable pencils, which stayed in my backback as I left papers in a stack and scribbled with the end of something chewed up and yellow. I remember selecting each of these things, and I still find them very exciting, and I hope that a child who has perhaps had to settle for never having an elegant new pencil with a Disney character on it, or the wood bent into a heart shape, or an eraser shaped like a pumpkin will be as excited as I would have been to have the endorsement that one's work is important, whether the child chooses to use the pencil or, like me, to preserve it carefully. There is always the chance they will just see these things as junk; it is hard to say. I drop them off on Monday.
I have bought a plane ticket from Albequerque to Dallas, which means I will be hitching a ride to New Mexico on May 9 (with the very people I will be visiting in New Mexico) and will return to Dallas by air May 18 (just in time for C. Blacker to drive from Santa Fe to stay with me in Dallas en route to NY). It feels like ages since I've been out of Dallas, even though it's only been a few months. I'll miss Ciro, but we both agree I could use the vacation and the company of my much-missed friends. What I am most excited about, of course, is the possibility this means I get to participate in the choice of paint colors and window treatments for Val's new house, since deep in my heart of hearts there is an alternate Romie who owns many mansions with elaborate interior decorations (including, possibly, a trampoline room).
I have always had a somewhat split relationship with art supplies (and before that school supplies), because I like them very much as objects but am not often comepelled to use these adored objects as tools; I love handbound notebooks and elaborate pencil boxes, but these stay pristine unless I force myself to their unnatural use. I do much better with tools I can profane - books I can slam down to kill bugs and pens I can grab when my hands are smudged. Back-to-school shopping meant gorgeous binders and adorable pencils, which stayed in my backback as I left papers in a stack and scribbled with the end of something chewed up and yellow. I remember selecting each of these things, and I still find them very exciting, and I hope that a child who has perhaps had to settle for never having an elegant new pencil with a Disney character on it, or the wood bent into a heart shape, or an eraser shaped like a pumpkin will be as excited as I would have been to have the endorsement that one's work is important, whether the child chooses to use the pencil or, like me, to preserve it carefully. There is always the chance they will just see these things as junk; it is hard to say. I drop them off on Monday.
I have bought a plane ticket from Albequerque to Dallas, which means I will be hitching a ride to New Mexico on May 9 (with the very people I will be visiting in New Mexico) and will return to Dallas by air May 18 (just in time for C. Blacker to drive from Santa Fe to stay with me in Dallas en route to NY). It feels like ages since I've been out of Dallas, even though it's only been a few months. I'll miss Ciro, but we both agree I could use the vacation and the company of my much-missed friends. What I am most excited about, of course, is the possibility this means I get to participate in the choice of paint colors and window treatments for Val's new house, since deep in my heart of hearts there is an alternate Romie who owns many mansions with elaborate interior decorations (including, possibly, a trampoline room).
