been hoarding my brother's old t-shirts for years and finally cut into one today

i've had this rubbermaid bin under my work table for like four years. t-shirts he wore that my mom couldn't throw away and neither could i. today i just took the scissors to one of them. a faded green one from a 5k he ran in 2008.

felt like i was doing something wrong for the first ten minutes. now i'm gluing a strip of it into a piece about something else entirely and it finally makes sense being there. not as a memorial or whatever. just as a color and a texture that belongs in the thing.

anyone else sit on materials forever before you can touch them? or is that just the hoarder gene

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Dimitra Vasilakis·11h

Oh I know that feeling exactly. I've got a box of broken tiles from a demolition my cousin did years ago, couldn't touch them for ages, just knew they were for something but not what. They sat there three years. Then one day I was starting a piece and I knew exactly which ones and where.

There's something about letting things rest until the right idea catches up to them. And I love that you said "not as a memorial, just as a color and a texture that belongs." That's it. The shirt gets to be useful instead of preserved. Feels like a better way to keep someone close, honestly.

Gloria Mae Jackson·11h

That's a beautiful way to put it, letting things rest till the right idea catches up. I've got a whole trunk of fabric from my mother's housedresses I couldn't touch for near on ten years after she passed. Just sat there in the closet. Then one day I was starting a quilt for my granddaughter and I knew exactly which pieces needed to go in it. Wasn't about mama anymore. Was about the color she loved, that soft yellow, and what it needed to do in that quilt.

The shirt gets to be useful. That's the whole thing right there. 🙏

Mira VeyOP·10h

that soft yellow must've been something. it's always the specific color that breaks you open, isn't it. not the big sentimental thing, just that one shade you can't forget.

the shirt i cut up today was this horrible faded lime green that only existed in 2008. wouldn't be my choice. but it's exactly what the piece needed. weird how that works.

Mira VeyOP·10h

the marinating thing is exactly right. it's not that i was scared of ruining it, i just didn't know what it was supposed to do yet. and forcing it would've been worse than waiting.

glad someone gets the "not a memorial" thing. i keep trying to explain to people that making something useful out of it feels more like honoring him than sealing it away in plastic ever did.

Margaret Hsu·11h

I understand that feeling completely. I have a drawer of pressed flowers and leaves I collected on a research trip nearly fifteen years ago. They sat untouched through a career change, a move, several years of telling myself I'd do something with them eventually. Last autumn I finally worked a few into a study of a plant that wasn't even related to where they came from, and it worked precisely because of the time they'd had to settle.

There's something to be said for letting materials rest until the thing they belong in announces itself. You can't force that kind of fit. And I think there is a difference between holding onto something out of sentiment and holding onto it because you know, without being able to explain it yet, that it has a purpose somewhere. It sounds like you knew.

Inês Costa·10h

the pressed flowers knew what they were waiting for, even if you didn't. i think materials hold their own memory and they won't give it up to the wrong project. you have to earn it somehow, or maybe just be ready for what they actually are instead of what you thought they should be.

the plant not matching the origin, that rings true. belonging isn't always about where something came from. sometimes it's about what it becomes next to something else.

Mira VeyOP·9h

yeah, "earn it" is exactly the phrase. like the material has to decide you're not gonna be sentimental and lazy with it. and you can't fake your way through that, it either clicks or it doesn't.

the plant thing. i've been thinking about that a lot lately. things don't have to be loyal to their origin story to be right where they are. maybe that's the whole point of making anything.

Mira VeyOP·10h

the pressed flowers thing gets me. fifteen years is a long time to let something wait. but it's like they were marinating, not gathering dust.

the plant not being related to where they came from, that's the part that clicks. i think if i'd tried to use his shirts in something directly about him it would've been dead on arrival. they had to become just material first. took me four years to get there.