Many of you know that my hubby & I are living a bit of a vagabond life. My other half is working as a medical traveler, so since May 2011, we’ve moved across the good ol’ USofA from Florida to the Northwest, living in a new town every 13 weeks. So these days, we’re traveling light. Everything live with fits into the back of our mid-size SUV and a 4’x8′ UHaul trailer. All our other belonging are stored in a 10’x10′ storage unit in Jacksonville. The rest is gone. In preparation for this move and change in lifestyle, we sold or gave away all of our furniture except for a few sentimental pieces of mine. When I first saw these works on paper by Massachusetts artist Candice Smith Corby, they resonated with this slightly displaced soul.
I am no stranger to the competing feelings of freedom and loss that come from purging your life of unnecessary stuff. In our society, our possessions define us in so many ways. They demonstrate to the world, our tastes, our values, our experiences. The things that we live with become a part of our memories, so to be separated from them may result in a disconnect with our past. Of course, that could be viewed as positive or negative..
While I do often dearly miss some of my lovely things ( especially when living in some furnished rentals! ), there is also an incredible sense of liberty that comes with knowing that we can live ( almost ) anywhere. We no longer have the mortgage and maintenance of owning a home filled with rooms and stuff we rarely use.
Smith Corby’s works speak to that overwhelming sense of being possessed by our possessions. How many of us have gone into large amounts of debt just to have the homes of our dreams? Oh, how difficult it can be when we insist on holding on, when what we really need is to just let go.
So have I made you want to give away all your worldly goods? 😉 Maybe just a spring cleaning is in the cards.. To see more of Candice Smith Corby’s work, please visit her website.
This artist found via Lost at E Minor.
Featured image is Bunny Love by Candice Smith Corby. All images are via the artist’s website unless otherwise noted.
