Anatomy of an obsession

I guess it had to come to an end – this brief period of total satisfaction with all of my belongings and the arrangement thereof, not to mention the accompanying feeling that it might be great to liberate them all and live, once again, in a clean, white, empty room with one perfect dress, one perfect bowl, one perfect spoon, one perfect pillow, one perfect candelabra, and one or two perfect little drawings floating around* ...

In short, I've begun questing again. This time, I was triggered by this photo on the cover of Edible San Francisco of four etched crystal tumblers. I know it's hard to see in this picture from their website, but they are so simple and fragile and pretty, and I'm utterly dismayed that these people would feature them on the cover of their publication and then provide NO information about who made them, what is their history, where did they come from, whether and where they are available to get one's hands on, etc. All they give is the photographer's name. Harrumph!

It's funny to pinpoint the origin of this obsession. Yesterday afternoon when I was lying in my room all strung out on Excedrin PM, Mr. A woke me up to give me a glass of water. I drank some of it, and then set the glass on the windowsill above the bed. When I woke up again an hour or so later the sun was going down. It was a damp, foggy afternoon and the light was filtering through the mist and all the colors of the back yard were sort of glowing, and the light through the glass on the windowsill looked all magical and liquidy and beautiful. I picked it up and the glass felt cold in my hand, and the water felt cold on my lips, and inside my mouth it tasted like melted snow.

Suddenly I remembered this beautiful crystal glass I used to like to drink cold water out of. It was the last remaining of a set of six, which I bought at a great old vintage shop in Salt Lake City in 1990. I brought them home, carefully wrapped in tissue and nestled in a two-handled paper shopping bag, set them on the the kitchen table, and went into the other room to do something or other. Within minutes I heard a horrible crash, and then some mad scrambling and breaking glass sounds – and then my cat Elvis came running into the living room. He had stuck his head into the bag through one of the handles (you know how cats like to investigate bags), and when he tried to pull his head out it got stuck in the handle. He panicked, leapt off the table, and went dashing around the house with the bag full of crystal bouncing along behind him.

The set instantly shrank from six to two, and then a few years ago my roommate broke one of those, and then the last one expired when I was moving. Right now my main cup is a chipped blue and white enamel mug from Chinatown, the kind with the blue koi fish stencilled on the side. I got this one in an interesting way, too – it was hanging on the "regulars wall" of a coffee place near my house in Provo (this is a wall where regular customers could leave their own personal mug to use when they came in). I went to a small amount of trouble to find out who it belonged to, and then tracked him down and begged him to let me trade him something for it. I don't remember what we traded for, but I've had it for at least 15 years now. The first year I lived here it was so hot I used to fill it about half full of water and put it in the freezer just until a thin film of ice formed on the top, and then drink the beautiful slushy coldness. One day I forgot and left it in too long, and the whole thing froze solid – which expanded the bottom of the cup outward and cracked the enamel. It's been slowly rusting out ever since, which is probably as good a way as any for such a cup to go.

Anyway! One cup, one bowl – I like this philosophy of "stuff." It's especially exciting when the stars align and events converge in such a way as to let me know the universe thinks it's time for me to rotate one thing out, and another one in.

So: the search is on for the perfect cut crystal rocks tumbler from which to drink ice cold water while looking out a window into the fog.

All kinds of vessels have been capturing my attention lately, however – not just glass but also wood, paper and porcelain. For instance, look at this beautiful stuff. The thing is though, when I look at these things and really think about holding them in my hands, what I find is that I don't really want to own them – I want to make them.

I've been all over the web lately, looking at people's art and craft blogs, and as of today I've realized I shouldn't be doing that right now. I'm too easily influenced in this way – my mind fills up with photo-perfect images of other people's work, my own ideas start to seem unbearably flawed and amateurish, and I end up so frustrated and overwhelmed that I stop doing anything at all. Inspiration is one thing, but my work has only ever suffered when I try to imitate or compare it to what other people are doing. The best stuff always comes when I'm working out of my own head and my own experience.

Enough said for today. You've probably realized by now that I can easily go on and on like this forever! This post a day thing is re-awakening the obsessive part of me that spent so many years dreaming and documenting my life instead of being, doing, living. At the end of the month, I will probably start to cut back again – it's not good for me to spend this much time endlessly involuting. Better to balance that tendency with action and interaction in the real world.

*This photo is from somebody's Flickr set that I screen captured when I was drawing up plans for my alleged studio (I have to call it that until it's actually built), and cannot now remember the name of to give photo credit. If it's yours, please forgive me! Or let me know and I'll take it down, or link it to you, or whatever.