—Heather Darcy, Curator

ArtCat – Chelsea – Sara Meltzer Gallery – Prequel

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Did you know your neighbors when you were growing up? I did. I would walk across the street and visit whenever they were home. We would hang out on the living room floor or sit on the couch and tell stories (though I think we spent most of our time outside). As I got older the couch became a real place of cultural comfort. A place to sit and talk about art and life. If the couch wasn’t comfortable, it showed in the conversation, shifting from one position to another, physical comfort permeates our very existence, not just our tactile senses. When I think about the word home I think of two spaces, the kitchen and the living room. These two spaces are, after all, the milieu of our domestic life. When I think of fabric, my mind fills with petroglyphs and tapa patterns, bark cloth, raw silk and linen.

I started the pattern for this piece by creating an india ink painting paying special attention to how the forms interacted with each other the way hawaiian floral prints sometimes do. I thought about Keith Haring, and even Chuck Close’s more recent works. It was important that it reflect my interest in the body and its relationship to this ubiquitous domestic object. It needed to be organic in form yet at the same time challenge my understanding of Hawaiiana. I invite my viewers to interact, inquire and most importantly reflect on how this piece affects the body. I hand screened the fabric during my 2008 summer internship at the Fabric Workshop Museum in Philadelphia under the guidance of Lonnie Graham.

My work addresses history, nostalgia and empathy through the use of photography and design. Domestic space is a dominant feature of my work and capturing the human condition as ephemera, “fixing it in eternity” as Henry Cartier-Bresson remarked. Shifting from photographing domesticity to creating an object of domesticity has caused me to reflect on my personal history and the ways in which ethnographic observation can be be a catalyst for self study in the arts.

They’re important to all of us, because I think we all have those odd things we can’t place or categorize. When I asked you to think about photographing and recalling the stories that accompany the things in your junk drawer, how did that change your view of that hidden space? To me these items are all memory triggers.

A tube of take-along superglue I think I bought for a recent trip to Panama- you never know when you might need that stuff!

A backup battery for my EOS 3- love that camera, but I don’t make the effort to shoot film enough!

A Panamanian Balboa 1/2 Dollar Coin- they are so cool! Got it in Spring 2008 on my second research trip to Panama because I totally forgot to bring any back from the first trip.

The Junk Drawer Project has been submitted to the Rhizome community. I’m hopeful that this community will find the idea of creating a large typology of user submitted junk drawers interesting! If any of you have ideas about how to further promote or generate interest, please contact me at heyg at mac dot com

Put up your drawers!

Isn’t it fun when you pull out a pair of jeans you haven’t worn in a while and you find a few bucks tucked away in a pocket? Wouldn’t it be great if that could happen more often?

It can.

Take a peek around your house. There’s cash lying around all over the place. It may look like a DVD player or an exercise bike. But really, it’s cash. Maybe you haven’t touched it in ten years, but someone else might be looking for just that doodad.

Check this out: eBay working with Nielsen Research discovered the average American household has around 50 unused items (aka clutter) lying around the house worth about $3,100!

It’s so easy nowadays to convert that clutter into cash. If you have a digital camera and can write a snappy sales pitch, you’re in business. You have lots of choices to market stuff. Craigslist, eBay, Amazon, Facebook… take your pick. There also are specialty auction sites that focus on everything from wedding items to sports memorabilia. Google “sell stuff” or something like that to find them because more pop up all the time.

There are a couple of reasons folks sell stuff online. To clear clutter or to collect cash. Or both.

We wanted to finish off a family room. Before we could do that, we had a bunch of stuff that had been in the basement for years. In this case, I wasn’t looking as much for a lot of cash, but someone to come to my house and pay me money to haul it away. (Think about that for a minute)

I was able to sell an exercise bike, a home entertainment center, stereo speakers, and bar stools. Oh, and I also had a “what was I thinking?!” item that I sold: a brass and copper piece of wall art that seemed like a good idea at the time. In this case, Craigslist worked best. I made a few hundred bucks, people hauled away what I didn’t want and now we have a nice family room.

If there’s a drawback to Craigslist, it’s that sometimes people say they’re going to come by, and then they don’t. Don’t take it personally. I’ve learned to keep the ad up until the item is completely gone from my house.

I’m also selling off some valuable sports memorabilia through eBay. My collection is simply too big. Before you get started on eBay though, make sure you understand the fees involved and how everything works. If you’re a little lost, take a look at some “power sellers”. Follow their lead until you figure out what works best for you.

Here are some tips no matter how/what you plan to sell:

Take good pictures. Make sure the item is against a plain background that focuses attention on the product. Take 2-4 pictures from different angles. Make sure the item is sparkling clean before you take a picture.

You’re marketing; make your product description snappy.

Check out ads for similar items to what you’re selling for ideas.

Figure out what’s a price you’re comfortable selling your stuff for. Be prepared to bargain; it’s all part of the fun.

Be honest. Deliver what you advertise.

Be careful. If someone is coming to your home, make sure someone else is there with you. If you’re shipping the item, make sure your customer knows exactly what the charges will be along with the sales price.

One last way to get rid of the junk: donate it. An old couch might be a new couch for someone else. Some charities will pick up your items, others you may have to make a trip to their location. The bonuses are cool. Often it’s tax deductable and even more important, you did a good thing. I know of one charity that received some jeans as a donation from an estate. A sharp volunteer recognized them as 1960s vintage Levis and sold them on eBay for $1,800!

So donate, recycle, or sell. But, do something. You’ve opened your eyes to all this stuff lying around your house so at the very least, you’ll end up with extra space. Best case scenario: you’ve got cash in your pocket or a tax deduction.

Contributed by: LitterMan

Photo by: Exit343

Thanks For the Article LitterMan!

Jack Kerouac's On The Road, Reduced to 500 words

An Example of a piece I started working on..

CRW_9890

Originally uploaded by g[wiz]

Needless to say, the U Texas students had a blast on their last 2 nights in Panama. They all did quite well on their projects and unlike many other college students, these kids pulled 16 hour days of hard work to help out some folks in need from Coclé to Centro Madrono for 10 days of what is usually a festival of 24 hour debauchery (spring break). I know they had their share of good times along the way, but they worked their butts off and I’m glad I got to work with some of them and hang out with the rest.

I’m glad I let Tom know I was coming to Panama a few months ago. I got to take care of my own project and take on some volunteer work with a promising new organization called Global Business Brigades. I’m packing up all my things right now and making my last post before I hop on a Copa flight to Orlando later this evening. I forgot how much I really loved Panama the last time I was here. Panama, from a gringo perspective (or mine anyways), is a mix of frustration when dealing with some of the local businesses and absolute joy when it comes to the kindness of the local community in the Casco that I feel very close to. Panama is an exercise in patience and a lesson in recognizing the things we value in life. I can’t wait to get home but I hate to leave. I can’t think of a better way to feel after a week and a half of working, playing, swimming, climbing, hiking, negotiating, eating, drinking and most of all, being. Thank Tom for the great opportunity and help with my own project as well. Peace.

For the tourist shop whose owner also has a fairly succesful t-shirt line, we are focusing in on some basic needs. Ricardo, one of two brothers owns a t-shirt line called Panama Collections. The designs are single color and very clean, and as far as I’m concerned, the only t-shirts worth buying in Panama. His design is basically the same as the classic Hawaiian t-shirt with the band of hibiscus across the chest, but with mola patterns instead. Like I said, very clean, very nice. We get the sign quote in the morning and we will have pricing on store fixtures tomorrow by noon. Our budget for the city group, (because we only have 5 students) is only $500, which even in Panama isn’t quite enough to do much with 2 clients. Because of this limited budget, we’re prioritizing the tourist shop sign over other things for them and supplies to make samples for the cobbler.

Oh and one more thing…So I’m supposed to go to Chorrillo in the morning to take photos with the police in tow and one of the members of the organization called Darma who is a supporter of the work our students are doing with an orphanage about 2 hours away from Panama City. After meeting the folks from Darma on Sunday afternoon I told Tom that I really wished I could do some more work with them (meaning Global Business Brigades) and he said, “well, I’m coming back Wednesday, so get your work done and come back to the orphanage with me”. So Wednesday I leave for the orphanage to take photographs there and then Friday we head to Costa Esmeralda which is East of us here in Panama City and only about a half hour from El Valle where the orphanage is. As a famous dude once said, “life moves pretty fast…”