After reading Felix and Lara’s superb manifesto and posts, I am inspired to celebrate messy tuesdays.
“Neat” in the rooms in which I live, is a rare and fragile thing. There are mountains of mess at the margins of the tidy, just waiting to seep in.
You see here one corner of my work pod. Others may more accurately describe this space as a “cupboard”. Note the mess, above, steadily encroaching on the workspace, below. If you are short, like me, the mess is above eye-level and virtually invisible. And in any case, I am fond of the mess: it is a sort of sculptural testimony to space-saving. It is frankly amazing what you can fit in a space three feet by six feet by eight feet high: computer, printer and associated gadgets; three bookshelves filled with books; my entire stash of fabric and wool; half of my packed away wardrobe (I have to rotate clothes between winter and summer); numerous old handbags and pairs of worn out shoes; boxes of photographs; old letters and greetings cards; a frightening assortment of wooden animals; several eighteenth-century prints; a small rug; a clarinet; me sat at my desk, and a commemorative bottle from 1876 in the shape of George Washington.
I love mess. Mess is archeology.
(who knows what crappy detritus hides beneath the keys, or how long it has been there)
Mess is pleasure, and the memory of pleasure:
And it is the stuff of potential:
(this mess may soon be made into something else).
Mess is good because it is stuff in the process of becoming. It might well become more mess, or it might turn into something else entirely. I am put in mind of Bill Brown’s account of Toy Story, in a great article he published ten years ago. Brown gives a superb reading of the mutant toys under Sid’s bed –“a one-eyed baby’s head on an erector-set spider, a pair of Barbie legs attached to a miniature fishing pole” — as things of tremendous transformative power. For him, these essentially messy objects are suggestive of a “wish to transfigure things-as-they-are.” To me, tidyness is an acceptance of things as they are. Mess, on the other hand, is the wish for transformation.
What a fabulous piece, so very true. I think that creative people tend towards mess because it’s about making strange connections.
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Perfect, just beautifully written – thank you so much!! I’m feeling positively happy about my mess today :)
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To me mess is a sign of life. Homes where everything is regimented into order all the time signal an absence of spontaneous, engaged living. Control and perfectionism kill creativity. Thanks so much for this post.
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I love this! Do you know this line from A.A. Milne?
“One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.”
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I love it! Is it only on a Tuesday though ….. can I extend it to every day of the week or does that just make me slovenly?
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Mess is excellent. If I spent all my time tidying everything away I’d never get any actual work done. Hooray for real life!
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Archaeology, now that’s right. that’s why I can’t find stuff if somebody else moves it, and why I am so protective of *my* mess. I naturally remember that that thing I’m looking for came in after the purple thing and before the brown lumpy thing, and around the same time I ate that chocolate – so I can lay my hands on it in the layers of detritus.
My mess this week is a sad and meagre thing, not worthy of photography. I had to tidy up to murder cockroaches.
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I am just relishing the idea that you refer to your study as your ‘work pod’!
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Logo & manifesto for Messy Tuesdays are both on Felix’s blog
http://knitaluscious.blogspot.com/
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Thanks for the links and thoughts about mess. Lots of food for thought.
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http://www.hughlane.ie/fb_studio/index.html
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brilliant. i’ve linked to you and L and F and BB. i want to start a flickr group. i want to steal your logo.
tidy is also exclusive and anti-democratic.
i’m thinking of those pictures of francis bacon’s studio, which are sort of terrifying. now that was mess.
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As ever you add new dimensions of thought to the things I am thinking about…
I especially enjoy the new associations you add to what mess is. Archeology. Potential. The wish for Transformation.
Hooray for mess! and for space-saving.
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