My husband and I went for a day vacation to a antique show by the river, you can read about it in other posts here in this blog . It was really fun, a little too hot but we got through it. We searched through yard sales and a firehouse full of junk . Lots of fun places to explore. Then we went about an hour and 1/2 drive to an arts festival. It was very high end modern work. A couple hundred to thousands of dollars for their work. It`s 4 days long. This was the 4th day and they looked beat. I saw a woman that I use to do shows with who does modern works now with paper, she use to do country type stuff but has changed with the times . A lot of the work there bored me, but a few stood out and were interesting . One took antiques and put them together in the most beautiful way. I can`t even explain it, but you know how ,to me, people just take stuff and glue it together , collage it, and it`s art? I always think, I don`t get it. Well, the way these people did it was really great, beautiful old wooden birds, connected to very old cameras, just can`t really explain. I just really felt connected to her work and it rang true to me somehow. Then there was another woman who took junk and collaged it together , it didn`t touch my soul.
I came away from there thinking, all those people made what they wanted and felt what they had to, and it wasn`t for everyone, but for someone who had a connection to it and enough cash to buy it. I had the connection, but not the cash, but that didn`t make it any less great. Really the work shouldn`t be compared as who was the best,(even though they gave out awards for that). I`ve been doing that my whole life, who is the best, but as I have learned, when you think you have found the best, there is someone out there better, or they`re on their way. And it has to do with the judges perception at that point of their life too, their filter in which they see things. This will change over time as life is experienced or failed to learn from experiences. This comparing each others work may be another way of looking at someone else`s paper , looking side to side instead of on our own work. Maybe even an excuse to not do our own work, I`m not as good as them, so why try?.....We must keep our eyes on our own papers as our teachers use to say. Everyone is just doing their work, making things for whatever reason, the love of it, for the money, the statice, the fame, the need to create, the challange,etc. Everyone wants to be accepted , and their work loved, but it`s not reality. You can`t please everyone . How does the saying go? You can please some of the people some of the time........and that`s all we can hope for , some....someone somewhere will want to live with something we have created, and put value on it. Because really that`s the only value it has, besides the value we have invested, time, cost and heart. Whatever someone is willing to put on it at that time will be the value at that moment. Dealing with antiques , i`ve watched things go from being fought over financially at auctions to later seeing them put into box lots later and no one will give $1. .
We have to buy what we love and what holds good feelings of something remembered. Or new feelings of love for the newly found treasure, something that will hold up over the years, that you won`t get tired of ,are my favorite things. Maybe things that are trendy may appear to become outdated, fade in our eyes. To be replaced with a newer trendier thing. But this will lead to a never ending cycle of things that leave you unsatisfied. To find your style and taste, and then build on that, is a great feeling. I found mine by tearing images out of magazines and collaging them together in another book. This helped me see what made me the happiest. That being "early" things. I felt connected to that one persons modern work because she used all early antiques, in a really beautiful way and I didn`t see it as she`s ruined perfectly good antiques. Ok, I`m done, I got that off my mind now. The End.
Talk about value! This is what I found at the junk auction last week. It had a note" this is a very old pincushion". They weren`t lying! But I still got it for a song. I was so happy. The colors are perfect too. The glass at the bottom is chipped so the dealers that usually pay a lot for antiques thought it was nothing. Not realizing that it`s a make do. An early pincushion made back in the day when everything wasn`t disposible, but reused, recycled into something else. I love this spirit and I try to live this way myself, using old fabrics and materials to become something new to be used and loved. I compose, recycle, and give things away on www.freecycle.com in my area, so as not to fill our landfills. Most everything in my house is from auctions, flea markets, yard sales, except a few things I wasn`t able to find, and I like to buy a new mattress and box springs.
