Storage Space

A few days ago I met my friend J in Fremont. J is a fine ceramic artist – though when I met him he was doing this weird and very cool interactive stuff built out of all kinds of crazy materials – glass, lead shot, wood, electrical parts…

I asked J how he prices his work and he just sort of shrugged. “Meh, I dunno.” We were talking about how you don’t want to price your stuff to sell, because it’s not about just getting rid of it, because it’s valuable, after all, you made it with your own two hands. But you don’t want to overprice it because what’s the point in that – you might as well not price it at all. You look around at stuff that might be something like yours, but you hate all of it, and eventually, you just make something up and hope you got it right.

J thought I’d priced my stuff fairly, not too expensive, but not exactly priced to get rid of. Then we got in to the point which I’m taking forever to make: What do you do with the stuff when it doesn’t sell? “I live in just over 400 square feet,” said J, “and still, I insist on making all this STUFF! I mean, what is WRONG with me?”

We both started to laugh. I have work from years and years and years back, it’s not hanging anywhere, it’s just stacked up or rolled up or leaning up against… I don’t know what to do with it. I can’t put it in my basement because it’s too damp down there and it will get ruined, and I’m fresh out of wall space, and I like it too much to throw it away, so what’s left?

Next Monday I have to take down my show. For the last two weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of networking to try to find a place to show next. It’s not that I really want another show or even that I’m that concerned about selling the stuff, though it would be nice. It’s that I really don’t want to take the work home again. I have no place for it. It’s just going to pile up in the room that I pretend is my studio and it’s going to sit there until Hell Freezes Over.

Over the past month or so I’ve been on a tear to get rid of as many extraneous things in my apartment as possible. It’s because I want to recover my studio space from it’s inappropriate use as a storage locker. I want to use it for the purpose that I’d originally intended it for – as a place to sit and make art. But there a chicken/egg thing here. Most of the stuff – not all, but most – of the stuff that’s sitting in there, hogging all that useful real estate, is art related. Old work and art materials. After I box up the show, I’ll have five cartons of work that I’m going to have to store somewhere. You tell me where it’s supposed to go.

J wants to trade me one of his pieces for one from my show. I’m all over this idea, but, as he was the first to point out, it helps me with my storage problems not at all.