January 2012
2 posts
I received the Boa when I was 18 years old from my father. This gift was not a token of love but of guilt, it was his way of saying I’m sorry. I cannot truly remember the reason for this gift, even then. I remember a fight, feeling embarrassed and sad though I don’t recall if this fight was between us, or them.
I never wore the boa, I didn’t know what to do with it. It has been sitting in my...
My Best Flannel Shirt
I actually owned this shirt for so long I am a little hazy on when I bought it —- which is a rare occurrence for me as I like my clothes. That being said, it was an expensive flannel shirt that I justified buying because I think it was on sale at the Gant store on 5th Avenue. A great color combination tan yellow with accents of white and red. From there it had a...
August 2011
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My house is filled with far too many objects purchased and given. The objects that mean the most are the ones related to my family and friends. This iron piece is unlike other objects in my house due to the fact it was found and the deep sadness in invokes in me.
It was a year after Katrina hit. I went to Pass Christian, Mississippi in June with a group to help rebuild. The devastation was...
Do you believe objects retain memories?
Nancy Du Tertre’s psychic workshop class did a psychometry exercise using the above object donated to this project. Psychics are able to receive impressions by holding objects in their hands, these can take the form of sounds, smells, tastes and emotions. Their words have reminded me that objects can speak to us and can activate our imaginations. It is...
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Composite of clothes donated to The Secret Life of Objects: wedding dress, pink suit worn to daughter’s wedding, blue sweater given from mother to daughter, favorite plaid shirt and dress sewn to wear to the 125th Anniversary of a hometown in 1975
From Louise Bourgeois, The Fabric Works:
Very very difficult to get rid of all the clothes I do not use this year
What do they represent:...
May 2011
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My hair and my mother’s hair
In honor of Mother’s Day I wanted to share a quote from my favorite book, Marilyn Robinson’s Housekeeping. I understand it all too well:
“Sylvie and I …could not leave that house, which was stashed like a brain, a reliquary, like a brain, its relic to be pawned and sorted and parceled out among the needy and the parsimonious of Fingerbone. Imagine...
January 2011
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Two months ago I received a very special submission to this project: a fascinating and rare book, “Twenty-Six Ghosts,” and a 21-page letter (see the above photo). The articulate letter was hand-written on composition paper, the ink varying color over the course of the pages. I read it in one sitting, and I felt as if I was reading a short story in a modern anthology of ghost stories....
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I received a lovely letter in the mail along with “two bits of nostalgic ephemera” for my collection. The following is an excerpt from Virginia’s letter:
…There are lots of emotional ties to so much! Handwriting on a card can tug at the heart. Bill’s Mama had a very distinctive handwriting and I still have padded mailing envelopes with that familiar writing on...
December 2010
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- Corinne Botz, “Dad’s Den”
One of my favorites passages from Marguerite Duras’ book Practicalities:
Some women can never manage it -they can’t handle their houses, they overload them, clutter them up, never create an opening towards the world outside…They know they’ll never be able to overcome the incredible difficulties of keeping a house in order....
November 2010
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- Photograph Courtesy of Karen Kirchhoff
My grandmother recently died. Verna had lived with her husband in the same house for over 50 years. When she died at 92, emptying the house was a huge project for her children. They discovered Verna was quite the hoarder. Amongst shoeboxes full of letters dating as far back as 1945 (sometimes envelopes without even a letter inside), there were...
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“My Bronze Bells”
I have been a minimalist in varying degrees since childhood. I still, however, hold on to a few items. The image some of these items create for me is not a pleasant one, and I question the need/desire to hold on to them. My childhood was far from a happy one and, in fact, I do not have very many memories, which could be considered very good or very bad. I have...
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I received this beautiful doll in the mail the other day from Katherine. She wrote: “My family’s neighbor from Italy worked for the countess Guadabasi who lived in Beverly Farms. When the countess died, our neighbor Rosina Rossi gave my family dresses and that doll, which my mom gave to me. I’ve been carrying it around for about 42 years….” While I was photographing...
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From the time I was conceived through her passing, my mother clothes shopped for me as sport. She loved to go to the big department stores and find designer markdowns of 40, 50, 70 percent. The older I got the more tension the purchases created, or more accurately, they reflected and reinforced longstanding tensions about how little she understood my taste. The pale blue sweater is symbolic of...
October 2010
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One of my underlying interests in this project is how photographs are used as a vehicle to let go. Some of my students have used photography as a way to come to terms with loss. Two years ago in my course “Views From Home,” Tessa Hite made a number of remarkable photographs of her mother’s belongings shortly after her death. Not only did these images help Tessa in her grieving...
August 2010
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Dr. Catherine Roster is the research director at the NSGCD, National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization. She oversees research projects for the organization and is an Associate Professor at Anderson School of Management, The University of New Mexico. I spoke with Catherine about her research into letting go of possessions.
How did you get involved in this area of work?
When I went into a PhD...
“…The world is cluttered with objects anyway. The ideas in my head are invariably more radiant than what is under my hand. But something puritanical and tough in me won’t take that fence. The poem has to be written, the painting painted, the sculpture wrought. The beds have to be made, the food cooked, the dishes done, the clothes washed and ironed. Life just seems to me...
June 2010
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May 2010
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Linda Samuels is a Professional Organizer and runs the organizing business, Oh, So Organized! She is the author of a recent book, The Other Side of Organized. I had the pleasure of talking with Linda a few weeks ago at her home in Croton on Hudson, New York.
How did you get started as a professional organizer?
I’ve always been organized. It was just who I was and I had this trait...
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April 2010
5 posts
March 2010
4 posts
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January 2010
1 post
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