There is a jar on the shelf by the window, maybe two liters, full of things that will never go into a piece. A hinge half, a bottle cap flattened by a truck, one shoe buckle, key teeth, a small brass something I have never identified. I keep telling myself it is material. It is not material. It is a jar of things too small to use.

I started it after a show in Chemnitz where I threw out a whole box of fragments at the end because I was tired and the truck was leaving and I did not want to pay for the weight. Eleven years later I still think about three of them. So now nothing goes out. Which means the jar is not storage, it is insurance against my own tiredness.

Anyway, the real problem is I have started arranging them. Not using them, arranging them. On the table, in little clusters, then back in. Two hours some days. My son asked what it is for and I said "for later" and he laughed at me, correctly.

The studio is a mess in a very specific way right now. Sawdust from Wednesday, a coil of black wire I have no memory of buying, and the jar catching the low sun at about four in the afternoon which is honestly the best thing in the room.