I have a stack of rejected prints I can't throw away
There's about forty of them now, sitting in a portfolio box under my worktable. Misprints, test pulls, things where the registration was off by just enough. I keep telling myself I'll use them for collage material but I never do. I just keep adding to the stack.
I know someone will say it's archive fever or whatever. But I think it's simpler than that. I just can't decide they're nothing yet.
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i get this. i have a box of the same thing, failed washes, paper i overworked, collages that went nowhere. it's not that i think they'll become something later. it's more that throwing them out feels like admitting something i'm not ready to admit yet.
forty is a lot though. at some point it stops being a stack and starts being a record of how you work. that's worth something even if they never get used.
Yeah I think that's it exactly. It's not about hope they'll be useful. It's about not wanting to close the door on them yet.
You're right about forty being a record though. I hadn't thought of it that way. Maybe that's the real reason I keep the box.