A story for Annette.
The Second Life of Things
In the back of the studio there were shelves that functioned as a quiet archive. Assemblages from earlier seasons stood there in a patient row. They had been shown once or twice, perhaps photographed, perhaps admired for a moment, and then returned to their resting places.
There was nothing wrong with them.
They simply no longer belonged to the present moment.
Dust gathered on them slowly. The small objects that composed them - bits of wood, rusted hinges, fragments of printed language, old photographs, stray hardware, pieces of colored paper - had once been carefully brought together under a particular mood of attention. For a while they held their conversation well.
But conversations change.
One afternoon the artist wandered into that back corner with a cup of tea and stood looking at the shelves. She tilted her head slightly, the way one does when listening.
Some of the pieces seemed tired of themselves.
Not ruined. Just finished with the particular arrangement that had once given them meaning. The little brass handle no longer needed to be attached to the faded envelope. The photograph had perhaps grown bored of leaning against the scrap of blue board that had been its companion for ten years.
She felt a small stirring of sympathy.
“Well,” she said quietly, as if speaking to a room of old friends, “you’ve done your time.”
She lifted one of the pieces from the shelf and set it on the worktable.
Assemblage has a curious dignity. Everything is held together by a few careful decisions. Remove one nail, loosen one hinge, and the whole structure relaxes back into a gathering of separate lives.
She began slowly.
A screw turned loose.
A small board lifted away.
A strip of paper released itself with a faint sound like a page turning.
Nothing was destroyed. Everything was simply returned to possibility.
The objects seemed almost relieved.
They lay on the table now as a loose family of materials, each one freed from the duty of explaining the others. The old relationships dissolved without complaint.
She moved among them with the casual attentiveness of a gardener thinning a bed of plants.
“Alright,” she murmured, “time to find you some new friends.”
The little brass handle might meet a piece of weathered wood that had been waiting in a drawer for years. The photograph might finally discover the fragment of red paper that had never quite found its moment. A hinge that once suggested a door might become something entirely different.
Objects are patient that way. They do not mind waiting for the right conversation.
From time to time she paused and looked over the table. It had begun to resemble a small society of possibilities. Old identities had fallen away. The parts were simply themselves again.
“Children,” she said, half amused at the thought, “you are about to be reborn.”
She worked without hurry.
A bit of glue here.
A nail tapped gently into place.
A scrap of language repositioned so that a new phrase appeared almost by accident.
What had once been several retired assemblages slowly became the early murmurings of another piece. Something fresh. Something that had never existed before that afternoon.
By evening the table held a small constellation of new arrangements. Nothing yet fully decided. Just beginnings.
She stepped back.
In the dimming light the materials seemed quietly pleased with themselves, as if they had slipped into more comfortable clothing.
She turned off the studio light and left them there.
In the morning they would begin their new life.
WOW YAZAH Cecil!!! This essay blew my mind for real! I loved loved loved it! You managed to capture the essence of my creating assemblage from my thoughts to the processes of beginnings and the doings! Thank you SO much for this. I will treasure it and re-read it many times as you have inspired me with your writing(s). And FYI, I have a "Cecil Touchon" file on my desktop where I store the many articles you've written over the years to read again and again. I so appreciate you and your energy to do all that you do from all your writings and your awesome art.
Oh this is just spot on! I'm re-assembling this year. It's rewarding and difficult.