I made quite good progress today with my project of tidying-up the bookshelves. Quite a few books have been sentenced to exile (although fewer than I anticipated) and although unfinished the place looks better already. One task within this overall project turned out to be especially interesting.
One shelf can only be described as having been used as a kind of holding area. My books generally are grouped at least broadly by subject. One shelf, however, just had the appearance of a heap of paper, and that obviously drew my attention. It turned out to contain a mixture of things for which otherwise I had no home….a kind of literary orphanage. One group of items turned out to be souvenir brochures from exhibitions or events I had attended, or places I had visited, and although I had a kind of sentimental attachment to some of these a lot of it was, frankly, waste paper in the light of my longer term interests. A second component of the pile was discarded dairies from past years. By “diaries” I don’t mean accounts of my doings and thoughts along the lines of Samual Pepys or Anne Frank. These were boring engagement diaries. What on earth possessed me to think that I might ever haver wanted to refer to these again I cannot imagine. They were filed under “WPB” with no hesitation.
To my surprise the pile also contained a number of sketchbooks, usually ones I had taken on holiday with me. These did sometimes contain some interesting pieces, such as a little portrait I did of my wife, at some time in the past. It was interesting to discover how much informal sketching I have actually done, as I have often felt guilty, believing that I should have done this kind of thing far more frequently. It seems I have been beating myself up unjustly. These were promoted to a drawer, not only as a belated acknowledgement of my virtue, but as a recognition that most of them still contained a high proportion of usable paper. Waste not, want not!
The final category turned out to be a really interesting mine of information. Whenever I have been away on a long trip or visit (such as my occasional “artistic retreats”, or foreign journeys) I make a point of keeping a kind of log. This often centres on the reading I have been doing, or reflections on galleries I have visited. If the purpose of the trip has been walking or climbing the log will not only contain a simple factual account of where I have been, but my responses to these experiences. Dipping into it I realise that some of it is quite intimately reflective. Sorting through this material I came to describe as a kind of “archaeology of the soul”.
I didn’t allow myself to be distracted into reading these pieces thoroughly, but I have put them aside for some future opportunity. Having spent some time recently clearing out old portfolios of drawings I have come to appreciate the value of this kind of exercise, as a rediscovery of one’s former self. It is instructive to discover not only how far one has travelled….or with equal probability, how little one has travelled. I wonder what I will discover.