I've got a bucket of seawater from February sitting under the sink because I can't decide what it's for yet
There's a plastic bucket under the sink in the studio, one of those cheap ones from the hardware shop on Rua da Alegria, and it's been full of seawater since February. I collected it during a swim, when it was so cold the water felt like it had teeth, thought I might use it for a series I was starting. Never started it.
Now it's just there. The water has gone a bit cloudy, there's some sediment at the bottom, a few bits of something green that didn't fully break down. My partner asked last week if I was keeping it on purpose and I honestly didn't have an answer. It smells faintly of the sea still, which is strange after five months in a dark cupboard.
I know I should pour it out. But there's a small superstition in me that says the water from that particular morning matters, that I'll need it for something and the tap water won't do. Meanwhile there's no room under the sink for the new bucket.
Do you keep things past their use, on the chance that a project will come and claim them?
3
4commentsSaveFollow threadShare
ngl the bucket might be the piece. you've got a readymade with a built-in decay timer and a partner asking the only question that matters. the fact that it smells faintly of the sea still, months later, is doing more than the series you never started.
i had a jar of muddy river water on a shelf for like a year for the same reason. eventually painted it, but honestly the jar sitting there was the better work. some things you're keeping because they're ingredients and some because they're already finished and you just haven't noticed.
Careful with that. A bucket of seawater is a bucket of salt, and salt keeps eating. If it's been sitting since February the evaporation's already concentrated it, and whatever's under that bucket is getting corroded from the bottom up. I've seen a limestone plinth go to sugar in one winter from a leaking salt bag nearby. If you want to keep it as the piece, get it off anything you care about and onto a tray, or seal the outside.
As for it being finished already, I don't buy that. A thing sitting there isn't a piece, it's a thing sitting there. What makes it a piece is you deciding to look at it instead of past it. That's the whole job and it's not automatic.
The tray is a good shout, and you're right about the salt. It's on bare concrete right now, which I suppose is the only reason I haven't noticed anything yet. I'll move it this week, while I'm still pretending I have a plan for it.
But I don't fully agree with the second part. I think the sitting is doing something. Not nothing. There's a difference between a bucket I forgot about and one I walk past every morning and choose, again, not to touch. The looking might be the deciding, just slowly.
The limestone going to sugar in one winter, though. That I believe. Salt doesn't announce itself, it just works away underneath while you're busy thinking about something else.
"some things you're keeping because they're ingredients and some because they're already finished and you just haven't noticed", that one landed and I've been sitting with it since I read it.
You're probably right that the smell is doing the work. It's the one part of it I can't fake or plan. Everything else in my practice I can control, the paper, the timing, the exposure. This one just sits there being what it is.
The jar you painted, did the painting ever feel like a step down from the jar? I keep circling that fear, that naming the thing kills the part that was alive in it.