Just to add

I just had a feeling of satisfaction of actually wearing something until it is worn out, perhaps something we rarely do anymore.

Nothing lasts forever

Today I was looking at options for replacing my leggings which now have two holes in the thigh and white hairs of elastic splitting through patches of worn areas. Just as i discovered ‘ponti’ leggings (thick, durable and expensive) my sandals gave way.

The metal piece in the sole  of one of the sandals started falling out of the bottom and I had to take them off. It’s just half way through my performance and I need to think seriously about replacing my leggings and these shoes with ones that will last until August. I have already bought those shoes to wear at my new gallery job so I will wear them as my sandals as well so I won’t need to buy more. I will invest in some good quality ponti leggings to replace my existing cheap material ones. I will use my old leggings to replace my studio leggings as you should see my studio leggings! ha, they are a disaster, holes everywhere, my toes keep sticking through the holes as I put them on not to mention that they are now transparent. I should be ok with everything else for the rest of the year. Though need I mention that my brown slip on shoes have not been wearable for over a month as the soles are also gone and I still haven’t seen the cheap sole man in Sydney, and my boot soles are starting to wear through too. Nothing lasts forever.

The shame of wanting

As I have been going along with compartmentalise I sometimes find difficulties, I posted on my blog the other day titled ‘I have forgotten where I began’ and received a comment as follows…

A very rich young man felt proud to tell his father that he had come home last night with a person he’d met on the way who had only ever lived with less and never experienced more. “He slept a bed for the very first time and ate fine food. He had a bath and lay back and just relaxed.”

“Where is he now?” his father asked. “I gave him clean clothes, some money and sent him on his way” the son said with pride.

The father looked at his son and sadly said ” Don’t you know you have ruined the rest of his life?”
Your wedded to less Lottie but is more still your Valentine? It sounds it from what you’ve just said.

It was a very confronting comment. I instantly felt embarrassed that anyone else would read the comment. I was ashamed that I wanted more possessions. Like at my garage sale when I questioned why people wanted each item they were buying, they in most cases felt it was a violation of their privacy, although it was such a basic question, it was as if they were ashamed to say that they just wanted it.

I love having less possessions. I don’t regret anything I have sold or given away, there are only two things I feel guilt for giving away as they triggered memories but I have no use for them anymore. I never want to have as many clothes as I did before, or bed linen, or ornaments, or excess that I have no use for on a regular basis. I don’t want to go back to where I was, I feel liberated with less but I sure am looking forward to adding just a few items of clothing to my skeletal wardrobe. I am no buddhist and don’t intend to be one. I think that’s what’s interesting, I am coming from having a lot and there is an endpoint. My intention is to see how living with less effects my mental state and attitude towards possessions. This is a performance not a rite of passage.

Thank you for your post, it really made me think and stirred something a little sickly inside of me. I loved the story, resinating.

I have forgotten where I began

It’s been 6 months and 1 week and I am starting to find this really hard. I started this project to see if I had more clarity and control in my mind when I controlled my things and lived with less. I have done this, I have found more peace with less but the additional effects of the sacrifice are starting to wear on me so to speak. I am spending hours in my pyjamas, it’s almost 12 and I’m still in them, as I have no desire to put on my ‘uniform’. I don’t even like wearing my pyjamas, they are hot and the buttons come undone by themselves as it’s getting old, but it’s better than being naked. This performance has made me think about costume and the importance of costume in our culture as much as other cultures even if it is just a t-shirt and shorts. As children we dress up to feel like somebody else or somebody we hope to be one day: a fairy, superman, a doctor, a mother. As adults we dress up to feel a certain way, to be perceived a certain way. I have felt the same way in my clothes for 6 months, I have stretched them to great limits to feel something different. I have worn my skirt as a dress, my dress as a skirt, even my top as a skirt but I’m getting beyond bored with myself. If I had no time placed on this performance I would stop but perhaps that’s why I set it for a year, so I would have to see what happens to my mind next, that’s why it’s endurance.

Shorts have been returned

2hour shorts performance

Most Mondays I go shopping with Anne, the lady we live behind. We generally go to the supermarket, bank, post box, news agency, just the necessities but we also try to go to a book shop or a few opp-shops. This used to be lots of fun until now that I can’t buy anything. I have tried to explain compartmentalise to Anne many times but I’m not sure if she quite understands it, perhaps it’s the age gap or the art gap but she just looks at me blankly. This particular Monday just past we visited some opp-shops, I bought Vincenzo a baby doll and two country home magazines for James and I (trashy I know but I love home magazines, reading material is allowed to be purchased in my mind). Anne said, “you should buy something nice for yourself, you deserve it”. I once again tried to explain but a blank look was given in return. I then saw some shorts hanging on the $1 rack at the very front staring right at me. I thought how much I wanted to wear them. I thought they would fit James well as his shorts are a mess and although he is compartmentalised he is not as strict and me. So I bought them for him. They didn’t fit him, they have sat on the table since Monday afternoon staring at me so this morning I tried them on with guilty pleasure. They felt amazing and I wondered if perhaps I had actually bought them for myself. I can’t explain how good it feels to wear shorts after so long. I have decided to wear them for 2hours as a performance within a performance (Shorts, a two hour performance 9am-11am Wednesday 5th February 2014, performed at the artists home in Newcastle). After the performance the shorts will be returned to Vinnie’s opp-shop by 3pm this afternoon.

 

 

 

I miss

I miss having a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. When I clean the house I either do it in my studio clothes, my pyjamas or in the nude as I don’t want to dirty my clothes. Sometimes I just want to throw on a daggy T-shirt. I see James’ T-shirts and I resist.

Another thing that I have not wanted to share but it’s silly not to is that my brown leather shoes are unwearable as the soles are worn out. It’s been about a month since I have worn them. I will take them to a place in Sydney someone sold me about who does cheap re-soling.

 

 

I’m high on emptiness

After the garage sale I packed the car with the mounds of things remaining and drove it all to LifeLine. I walked back up to my home and felt the weight of all these ‘things’ lifted. I was on a high. I have one box of clothes that I have kept for when this performance ends and almost everything else is gone. I cannot even think of what I have sold, it’s all so insignificant. Now I really feel compartmentalised, all of that stuff was really bothering me. I sat in my home with my top balcony clear and looked at some books that had been compartmentalised and decided that they did not need to be anymore. If there is one thing I am happy for my mind to be full of it’s books so I put them back on the shelf.

Justify your need or want

At my garage sale the condition of each sale was that each sale had to be justified, ‘what is your need or want for the item?’. Asking people this was quite difficult, people were very defensive and uncomfortable to say that they just wanted it, perhaps they felt guilty for wanting.