Lost

I can't believe how much work I've lost over the years.

Well, maybe not actually lost, more thrown away. At Fresno State, I was the type of person that never kept old work. All my sketches, thrown out when the project was done. Even drawings, thrown out once they started clutter. It worked out on the one side of reducing cluttered space and cluttered brain, but it definately didn't work out on the side of I DON'T HAVE ANY OF MY PREVIOUS DRAWINGS. Except for the ones that I decided to scan, and let me tell you, that pile is pretty damn skimpy.

In Spring 2006 I took a beginning drawing class (which I found out was another class that didn't count towards my degree, at least I enjoyed it, unlike Chinese for Beginners), and I did some pretty decent drawings in that class of horses, and bottles and even wild birds like owls and hawks (we had a great guest with her menagerie), but none of it was saved because right after that class' final, I graduated. And right after I graduated, I left for Hawaii, and a week after I came back from a Hawaii, I moved to San Francisco. I remember the exact moment when I decided that I would throw away all my bird drawings because "When was I going to use them? Would they survive the move?" I had reasoned with myself that since I was moving 660 square foot, a one bedroom apartment's worth of crap into a 90 square foot space, I would have to do some serious purging. Which began with those drawings.

I didn't have time to scan, and couldn't have scanned, because they weren't spray fixed for the guest's medical reasons that we need not go into, and I had already seen some signs of falling apart, but I look back on it now and truely regret throwing those suckers away, because they were great pastel drawings that I could never recreate, especially not on my own.

In this new school, new mindset, new ideas, I'm saving absolutely everything because I'm so scared that when it comes time for my portfolio, or my mid point review, or even my final review, I won't have the image that I want and will have to go and rescan the flimsy. When I actually have time to sit down and ponder what I've lost over the years because I didn't think the drawing was good enough, or I didn't think the piece was worthy, I definitely think I threw away a piece of my life and creativity. From the clay hand that I smashed in Year 9 because of mold, to the concept board that I ripped apart last semester, those were all pieces that I created that I didn't document in some shape or form, which is unfortunate, because now it's just lost in the black hole that is my memory, and I'll never get it back.

As for now, I think I'll take clutter over regret.