TRASHPO: DO NOT THROW IN THE TRASH-HELP!?!

[Hilary Konrad]

hello all:

a while back I embarassingly but necessarily put it out there that I am totally a newbie and unaware of what all the cool kids are/have been for some time now up to, creating with, etc-and that is TRASHPO. But so now that I'm finally starting to dream about it, collecting constantly, clipping, gluing, etc etc etc-MY MOTHER KEEPS THROWING MY ART, CLIPPINGS AND PRECIOUS BITS AND PARTS IN THE TRASH! Anyone else have this problem? She's the type of mother who fills your cup before your last gulp and is ready with the scoop before the cat even arrives at the litter box-AKA: I feel like I'm going insane. I'll spend hours on something and then see it in the garbage covered in soup-I live sadly in a town that cut the funding for regular paper recycling a couple of years ago so in Kennebunkport, once your recycling is gone it's like landfill gone. ANY IDEAS?

[Debra Mulnick]

This post and the ensuing comments have made my evening!  What a totally hysterical thread.

I am not laughing at you Hillary, for sure.  Just the circumstances of the situation, including your sharing that your compulsive cleaning up mom just happens to be a psychiatrist who has too much time on her hands - spying on and messing with your art works!  As a retired nurse, I will state here that most every psychiatrist I have ever known, just happened to be CRAZY themselves.  Not that your mom is, but it added another delicious and juicy detail to the already rich story.  And DeVillo, I loved your comments - they totally cracked me up!  So, suffice to say, Hillary, good luck outsmarting your mom, and I hope you continue making this important art, in her house, as long as you want.  Without imposed limitations.

Cheers!

[De Villo Sloan]

This is the most serious issue to confront Trashpo since the fake trash scandal of 2013.

Trashpo and DKult were a gynarchy. That was discussed frequently. DK was a matriarch and the gynarchy had all these brilliant strategies when it came to pilfering trash. Trash had no value and no one looks at it as a material possession.

I think the best thing for you to do, Hilary, is put this woman online here at IUOMA-Ning. I have some questions for her. DK was against tribunals, but now you see the wisdom of it, eh Hilary;

Put your mom online and we'll straighten this out.

You know, I used to say to DK, "Let God speak through you because he brings you messages through the trash each day in the street." 

So I would think stealing trash would carry some pretty heavy karma. So this person is a karma fugitive. I can fix that.

[Hilary Konrad]

P.S. WOAH. Did not realize the length and wordiness of that onslaught! Ho hum I am who I am. Long Live M.A.!

[Hilary Konrad]

Thank you thank you thank you all first of all for all the wonderful and incredibly creative/resourceful advice. I cannot as per usual figure out on the site how to reply individually to comments I'd like to reply to so here's a reply for each and every one of you-as a group as well as as individual artists/humanoid people I feel like I know through your art and this site...

Carmela & Richard C: You guys are both TOTALLY onto something, yes, yes, yesss! I DO do a bit of hording esp when it comes to potentials-I call the stuff I bring home from the antique flea market I work at by day "Priceless/Worthless;" may as well call it trash, and why not? Perhaps it DOES belong there. But Richard C: I'd like to give a shout out to your mother-love and respect and how her throwing it any of it at all away IS in that so-called "real" world of adulting and all a totally regular normal and healthy thing to do. HOWEVER: my mother TOTALLY too like yours DOES see the art in it all and is a huge supporter of my dabblings in TrashPo and mail art of any kind-art of any kind...however she is an academic and a psychaiatrist at that so totally different world there and the bits parts and pieces I collect in order to sift thru them and harvest them (and then and only then let go of the rest) look like refuse to her-BUT when it all is allowed to simmer and collate and come together into art she see's what my point was and says so, she is actually quite gracious and admires me more than I deserve! Anyway. My process is to do what they do in that popular culture book/fad/trend thing that happened a few years back where you put it all together in one box or pile and THEN let go of or keep things. So I put the box in my bedroom-under my worbench and bed, in my closet and she opens things and goes thru them. Meh, she IS a mom after all-but I need these pieces and parts to be allowed to make it to the whole endpoint the art part, they get confiscated or tossed before I knew I even had them and then I'm also just confused about what I have and being organized to some degree at least for me is very very necessary to actually making completing good art or art at all...But again to Carmela: "dust unto dust" perhaps let it go and be at peace...I kind of already am. As I've made clear on this site I'm not really a born and raised natural TrashPo artist-had no clue it existed till I started receiving it and following for instance Richard C's amazingly time-sucking (in a very very positive sense) myspace posts. So what I mean to say is this: by nature I am a traditional visual artist, yes a mail artist, but I'm more doing my TrashPo poetically in my whacked out writing and idea-factory than actually practicing the form...BUT: I want to explore and check it all out! Don't we all? Now, to Sabrina: YES I talk to her probably too much about all this she is a trooper for listening and usually doing what I need her to do-but you know the personality type, vacuuming heals her heart when for me neatness is not emotional, just a physical state. Thanks though Sabrina for the totally obvious suggestion and I am going to try and keep on her even though I'm probably oh so annoying!!! EVERYONE ELSE: you are all fabulous people and artists. Please let me  take this moment to say I'm waaaaay the ?#$%! backed up right now on my m.a. activity-but alas and alack: I DO have a lotta stuff in the works-as I say, making piles, piles piles...piles for individual people who have sent me amazing things out of nowhere or just cuz I happened to love something they posted...I'm on it! I know I know no pressure ever on IUOMA. Anyways THANKS AGAIN ALL! Keep on it, I'll try my best to be more patient and clever in my filing and hiding practices-Richard C: perhaps I should invest in a storage locker, eh? Sincerely Yours: H.

[Carmela Rizzuto]

Maybe your Mom is onto something. Dust unto dust...trash art into trash bin...

[Sabrina S]

Besides the other suggestions: did you try talking to her? 

[Richard Canard]

03.12.20 Dare Ms. Hilary Konrad, ...& then there is the other side of the problem, my mother was most tolerant  of my so-called artful activities as I  now recall.  & of course, I always thought that was the way it was suppose to be. Eventually, it all led to a couple of storage units full of the stuff (& now located in another state). The closets are full here & crowding a meager wardrobe, Every night I gotta remove overstuffed  cardboard boxes from the top of the bed just to get a little rest. SinCelery, Richard Canard

[Jenn Miltenberger]

Envelopes. I also have a giant binder with plastic page protectors that I throw everything and anything paper wise/cardboard in... it’s get for stuff 9x12ish and anything smaller. 

[PATRICIA LANDON]

1 large suitcase on wheels with handle to hold your stuff,label private.

[Yvonne Kettner]

Hi Hilary, 

maybe you could take a few nice boxes and put the bits and pieces in one,  a box for your work in progress and one for the ready-ones. So your mom can’t see your stuff!?

Good luck..