I posted some before and after photos of my studio to instagram, facebook and twitter yesterday and a number of equally untidy potters came out in solidarity with me. The potters that talked about their messy habits in their own studios made me feel less alone in my chaos. Everywhere I look lately, there seems to be a plethora of home beautiful shots,showcasing successful people with immaculate homes,equally immaculate studios, shiny hair, straight white teeth, perfect lives.
It took about two hours to clear all this space. I reckon it will take me ten minutes to mess it all back up again.
I am sure I have spoken about this before, my personal inability to be tidy, but I know that what I haven’t mentioned is how the chaos always makes me feel a bit inadequate. Not a lot inadequate mind you, and certainly this feeling of somehow being unworthy isn’t enough to motivate me to find the vacuum cleaner. But it is there quietly laughing away in my subconscious. I am aware that I have been programmed from childhood into thinking that a successful woman, is a woman with a tidy house, all sparkly and generic.
And this subtle expectation annoys me.
Once my children had mastered the ability to walk upright I stopped vacuuming everyday because it simply wasn’t necessary anymore. We spent as much time outside as we could manage and I wrote about our time spent chasing lizards instead of washing windows. I haven’t vacuumed since 2008 and to be honest I don’t actually know where the vacuum cleaner is, “The Spouse” drags it out of its hiding place every so often and I arrive home and notice that parts of my home are all sparkly and clean.
As I am sitting here thinking about housework and feminism, artistic temperaments and genetics, I realise I have totally lost my train of thought because there is a peacock in my garden.
A young peacock wandered into the garden and I have just spent ten minutes photographing him and daydreaming about dragon scaled platters as he ate the chook pellets I scattered about.
I have no idea where the peacock has gone now, he ate some pellets and then just slowly wandered off back into the bush. That is what I need to do as well, as my sparkly clean studio is calling me and I need to have the kiln packed and ready to be fired by Sunday. I always make a dreadful mess when I am glazing but I am sure all that shiny tidiness can not be good for my soul anyway.
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I have the chaos gene. But every now and then I just cannot stand it anymore, go absolutely OCD and clean like someone possessed and rearrange everything. Obviously, I’m much better at mess making, because the OCD thing never sticks for very long.
Sounds like me Zoey, I do a brutal spring clean about every three or four years and do a massive de-clutter. Which of course frees up space for the next round of gathering up interesting and possibly useful bits and bobs.
Chaos = Creativity, which is you to a T.
Those women with sparkly clean houses probably just have too much time on their hands, so they fill that time with cleaning and polishing.
Or they are like my mum, who said once that a woman should always keep her house as if she was expecting important visitors.
I tend to fall somewhere in between, with a tidy house that isn’t excessively sparkly, but no creativity whatsoever.
I love that beautiful peacock, I had no idea they roamed around wild in Tassie.
The peacock is probably an escapee from a property down the road a bit River 🙂
I love your chaos. I do hope that beautiful peacock doesn’t keep you awake with it’s squwark though. We had one in our last town, drove us batty.
Two neighbours have them Sharon and they are incredibly loud, I don’t reckon he will hang around though as he was very wary of Harry the dog.
Oh lucky you with a visit from the peacock… so beautiful!