22 Feb Our Home

Jon is a collector of musical instruments, coats, things that make sounds and bits that you never know where to put because they are impossible to categorise. I am a collector of tins, boxes, suitcases, colours, small things that collect dust, postcards, old photos, books, lists, notepads… I probably add a new category to my ‘collections’ every other afternoon. It is occasionally baffling yet most of the time immensely exhilarating.

Here we have a collection of photos of our current home…

At the moment our home is one room. It is the space where we sleep, watch films, run the Tin Cup shop (photographing, posting and packaging), have a drink, lay out some cheese with chutney,  plan future adventures and shuffle through piles of National Geographic magazines. Fitting everything we own (including two cats) into one room is an ever developing jigsaw puzzle, but I like to think of it as brain exercise. I feel safe surrounded by my ‘things’, like an armour of treasures (the scary old Junk Lady in Labyrinth springs to mind).

I think my obsession with belongings is based on communicating with the past. I can talk to my grandmother through the authors and books that she loves, I can love my mother and father through the records that they have collected, hearing their parties and slow evenings. And to be perfectly honest, holding on to so many pieces of the past that I feel are memories that do not belong to me.

Any thoughts?

Java x