Using Stuff

At one of our club meetings, Cherri told me about cleaning out the studio of a beloved friend after her death. All the unused paper and art supplies really struck a cord with Cherri. It convinced her to use what she had—and to use it now.
I think about this every time I hesitate to use something I’ve been saving for a rainy day. Take the embellishment of the woman on this spread in my process journal, for example. What possessed me to spend $5 on something that doesn’t fit in with my art triumvirate—funky/distressed, angelic or Renaissance? But as John says: it was a bright, shiny object, so I had to have her!
It occurred to me this morning that I would probably never use her though. I could give her away to Susan or Mary, which is what I usually do when I can’t figure out what to do with something I like. However, this time I decided I would use her anyway, as an exercise in…well, just as an exercise in using something I was holding onto. But could I in all conscience waste a $5 embellishment in my process journal? What if I found the perfect place for her tomorrow? Then I decided that in the unlikely event this happened, I could just take her out! And you know what? She’s definitely out of place in this project, but she’s also fits right in (which, come to think of it, is basically the way I feel about my own position in life).