26 years ago I started my journey towards taking a degree in Fine Art. Something I actually wanted to do at 18. Suddenly art began to create a bigger need for stuff. Evening classes and short courses prior to this moment tended to provide materials so art stuff had not left a big footprint in my storage. The next 26 years have been significantly different. Two homes have had actual art studio spaces. Two have not, and currently I have a hybrid space that requires me to be more sensible about what I keep and what I don’t. However the garage at our current home housed 26 years of my creative left overs. Like a snail I moved arty stuff around the country physically and in my mind. As an art gear archive the garage was pretty poor, it had been packed by our removers and there was no logic to it.I also never imposed logic on it, choosing to pick bags at random when I needed something For some inexplicable reason on the last day of the fifth heatwave the time had come to sort  and clear 26 years of stuff that might come in useful in a creative way. Sorting and going through it all showed my artistic journey. I can see the same decisions made on something created 8 years ago and in the work in progress illustrating this blog. But the truth is I can make those decisions without filling a space with the odds and ends of 26 years of creating. Time for stuff to be gone.

The garage is clear now, two trips in the camper van did the job. A small amount of materials went into my current workspace.

I had thought a clear garage was just a long overdue project, but it turns out it is not just the garage that is clear. My head is significantly lighter. A good few hours of going through and getting rid of old paintings and the associated materials I gathered on the way has been astonishingly cathartic.

What a puzzling and delightful outcome.