(apologies to the unknown owner of this picture I downloaded for inspiration!)
Remember how you used to collect rag dolls, or miniature cars?
What did you do with those collections? What did you do with your dead relatives' collections? Did they go to charities, other relatives, the trash dump?
I had collected pictures from magazines. For years. One after another, pictures of rooms, gardens, furnishings. I tore up the magazines that had been discarded by the library at the end of a season, and slowly built my collections. I organized them in colored folders, with tabs, easily accessible should the occasion arise for inspiration.
Each time we moved, these folders were discarded.
Thrown out with other discards.
In each new place, a new collection began to evolve.
I found a collection of interiors this morning as I was looking for something else.
This picture popped out and I'm amazed at how close it resembles my sun room remodel finished just this summer. My new space has this size of table, a capacious one to feed ten or more! And the greenery and the light are similar as well.
I wonder how we build dreams, a picture here, a pillow there.
that is very cool on capturing those pictures that inspire you....some of my collections were sold at a yard sale when i was in college...some are now my sons...
ReplyDeleteThe only things I collect are books and CDs, Rosaria, and the lack of interior design inspiration in my home is a testament to that fact. :-) It's like Topsy - it just growed! Your sun-room looks lovely - so restful.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like the pictures you collected all those years stayed with you, even after being lost or left in folders, and has resulted in a lovely sunroom that you will enjoy immensely. It is beautiful!
ReplyDeleteSome collections inspire -- like yours, with beautiful results! Others are a link to the past. And others are an indication of where one has been in life. I have a collection of letters and cards from people I have loved and, in some cases, lost. While I'm trying to convince myself that these should be scanned on the computer and the originals tossed, I still love holding papers written on by a loved one long ago. My parents were hoarders -- a blog post about that is coming up shortly -- but, as Bob and I spent a year cleaning out their house after their deaths, I was struck that some of their many collections spoke of coming of age during the Great Depression and not wasting anything. Going through what they had collected spoke so loudly about their life experiences and insecurities. It was a way to understand them anew.
ReplyDeletewell, that one picture must have definitely stuck in your mind.
ReplyDeleteSome of my spiritual friends would call this a universal gift. I dunno. But I have a board of magazine cutouts that represent my dreams and wishes and happinesses, and I have a pinterest account, and I have thrown away many such files as you describe. Many a room has emerged this way. Now i wish for so much more than rooms. I cut out words.
ReplyDeleteFor many years, I did as you have done ... clip, collect hundreds of images (the decorating/home design variety.) When we moved cross country from a Florida clime to the Oregon look, I left them all behind. Now I 'clip' from websites, my decor photo folder overflowing!!!!
ReplyDeleteHow nice that you were able to capture the mood of a photo in your own home! I'm afraid I have not a whit of talent in that area!
ReplyDeleterosaria, yet another important discussion! our collections, are they not us clutching to this passing moment, trying to assert ourselves as here? they are of the same fabric as accumulating stuff, adding credentials to our names, creating art to exist beyond us. and yet they are as perishable as our thoughts, feelings, bodies.
ReplyDeletethis too lends itself to the discussion of fear. we are trying to combat our fear in this way, in this ordering of the universe, in our making ourselves believe of our intrinsic stamp on time and importance.
just a few short years ago i collected and collected and yet this christmas i got a box of goods from my mother and i look at what i would have looked at previously as being valuable, as a sort of albatross now. i simply do not understand it. it if is not valuable then what is it? and what makes it valuable? my need for it.
do we need things to be pretty? no, we want things to be pretty. this does not make it wrong. what is wrong is when we confuse want with need.
i still want a pretty space but what is pretty to me now is more closely linked to need. oh, i still have yet a long way to go. i think if i ever arrive at my destination i will appear to be a long beared man in a shack in the woods:)
xo
erin
You are so far ahead of the curve! So many young people amaze me on how well they are defining themselves, their needs, their source of happiness.
DeleteMy daughter's house is all about their music. Every new acquisition has to do with their need to produce music. While I may want a new car, they might want a new guitar or...