I get a deal of satisfaction from filing. It is not the most exciting job, but it's a great feeling having it all done. In my days as a temp, as a secretary in publishing, and then all through my subsequent career, I took pride in keeping the filing up to date (or making sure my own secretary did!).
The most recent aspect of The Great Sorting has involved a contemporary kind of filing. I have been going through all my printmaking efforts to try to cut down the amount of space taken by all those sheets of paper. I have digitised it, then bitten the bullet and put everything that I would not be happy framing - in other words the overwhelming majority - into the recycling.
Gads, I empathize. So hard to let go of the things that if nothing else defined you at one time, feel a part of you to a point that it almost feels like throwing away actual parts of yourself. And so after I've managed one of these purges large or small, I'm surprised how quickly I rebound from any feelings of second guessing and remorse and continue on almost like those things never existed. Almost disturbing that but more so liberating.
ReplyDeleteLove Hopper and don't think I've seen this one before. Imagine that is how I Iooked during my secretarial days. :-) I too have always found filing satisfying.
Sheila, the digitising of the prints means that the work is not lost completely. Also, in the way I work these days I generate my images through digital collage and manipulation, and the prints were always destined for that end. I have never intended to make print run multiples. A few of the prints I think are good enough to frame, and I have kept them.
DeleteI don't have so much a sentimental attachment to many things. Generally it is a sadness, or even anger at the waste if I don't manage to find a home for something and have to take it to the dump.
I looked like the hippy version of the secretary in the painting: long hair and long skirts. And I certainly started my secretarial work typing on a manual typewriter - with copious use of tippex!