May 3, 2008

Today being the beginning of spring coincides with the beginning of garage sale season. Now for the past two years or so I have been avoiding this annual ritual as I never seemed to have the money, time or storage for everything I purchased. This morning however, the lilacs were just about to bloom, it was overcast with temperate weather and I felt the urge to join the masses and hunt bargins. The first sale me and my garage salad compadre hit was at a church where we found wonderful bargins and much needed household items. I got Smokey the Bear coffee mug, 2 clear drinking glasses, a solid towel rack (the old kind with 3 bars that was actually solid and won't bend when a wet dish or face cloth is put on it, hand carved and painted tramp art type tulips (about 20) two yellow plastic chicks, a cabinet from the 40s, children's curtains, an Abercrombie long sleeve shirt, 12 wooden hangers, cabbage starts, a handcrafted art nouveau needlepoint tie holder, a heavy frying pan, a cotton summer dress, a scarf and a McCoy planter. But the thing that really caught my eye was something my friend picked up and I had looked at for a while. Someone's carefully crafted clay art piece. I could tell by turning it over that it had been in a Bellefonte, PA show sometime in either 1991 or 1998 but there was no signature to be found. What interested me most was how this piece ended up in a church garage sale. Was it from a deceased artist who left it to someone who didn't want to keep it, Had someone once purchased it, received it as a gift, was it from the artist's own inventory I also wondered if someday one of my pieces would have a similar journey, after all Jackson Pollack's paintings have been found at garage sales all over the US why not mine. It was a bit disturbing to think that someday an art work that I have created and stressed over could end up with a red 25 cent sticker on it but I suppose that is the true definition to the statement "life goes on".