While I’m all for encouraging everyone to create, storage is another matter. Picasso may have been one of the most prolific artists of his time, but he had a steady stream of buyers to cart off his work. Toddlers, on the other hand, are not so lucky. I have every intention of hanging on to a selection of my children’s work; a manageable representation of the stages they went through, which leaves us with THE REST. While I have no problem purging and moving forward, they tend to freak out when witnessing their macaroni-embellished paper plate being tossed. Discretion is key. Language is key. Take the word recycled, for instance. “Where did my black and red wooden sculpture with nails that I made last year at day care go?” When faced with such inevitable queries, one can simply reply “I recycled it honey.” At this point a big smile and distraction are in order, unless you intend to explain what that overused word really means. One more tip. I highly recommend the ‘temporary-holding-zone’, where things to be ‘recycled’ are piled in a corner for a certain period of time (works well for husbands too). If cobwebs start to form, or paper becomes an agar substitute for growing mould, you can safely throw it out. Anyone asking for it wouldn’t have wanted it anyway.
"Why did you throw it out?!?"
ArtClubBlog 