I keep buying the wrong size frames at thrift stores because the art inside is worth more to me than the frame

Found a painting of someone's dachshund from 1983 yesterday. Terrible painting. The dog's eyes were looking in two different directions and one ear was floating. Frame was trashed, matting was that pilled velvet stuff.

Bought it anyway. Took the painting out, put it in a drawer. I don't know why I do this. I have a stack of bad pet portraits now and no use for them. But throwing someone's dog away felt wrong.

Same thing happens with photographs. Estate sales, flea markets. I've got a shoebox full of people I don't know. Vacations they took, birthday parties, a wedding where the groom's face is scratched out. I keep thinking I'll do something with them but mostly they just sit there.

Maybe it's just cheaper than therapy. Or a different kind of hoarding.

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Inês Costa·5d

I do the same thing with old photographs. Found a box of someone's holiday slides from the 70s at a flea market, a whole trip to somewhere coastal, probably Algarve or Spain, I couldn't tell. Kept them. I look at them sometimes and wonder if they ever think about that trip anymore, or if the person who took those slides has died and nobody wanted them.

The dachshund painting though, the floating ear might be my favourite part. I think we keep these things because discarding them feels like agreeing that they don't matter. And they mattered to someone once. That's enough, isn't it.

Mira VeyOP·5d

the floating ear is definitely doing some work. i think about that person sitting there trying to get the dachshund right and just... giving up on that ear. committed to the other three legs though, which i respect.

the slides hit different though. you're right, it's the same mechanism. someone curated those, labelled them probably, had a little projector evening. and then they end up in a shoebox at a flea market for two euros. i don't know what the alternative is, throwing them away feels worse. so they just live in my drawer now.

Inês Costa·5d

The dachshund with the floating ear is a detail I can't stop thinking about. There's something real about keeping those paintings, you're holding onto somebody's devotion more than the picture itself. Someone loved that dog enough to commission a portrait, however wonky. Throwing it out would feel like throwing out the love too.

I have a similar problem with old fishing nets and lengths of rope I find on the beach. They're not good for anything. They're frayed and salt-worn and I keep bringing them home. But they held someone's catch once, they spent years in the Atlantic, they feel like they earned their place somewhere.

The shoebox of strangers' vacations, that's not strange at all. Somebody wanted those moments kept. You're just the one still doing the keeping.

Mira VeyOP·5d

the ropes and nets thing gets me. they've got a whole life in them you're only catching the tail end of. that's the part i can't walk away from either.