“Do you illustrate your books too?”

This is a question I was often asked, back when I was meeting with kids in schools and libraries across the country. I told them, “I like to draw but don’t draw well enough to illustrate a book, so publishers hire artists they believe will do a good job.” Sometimes I added, “It took me thirty years to be able to write a book that was good enough to be published. (Red Is Best.) Maybe in another thirty years my drawing will be good enough to be in a book too.”

Well, those next thirty years have passed, and then some, I’m no closer to being able to illustrate a book than I ever was, and it has been a long time since I’ve indulged in the pleasure of drawing. I was reminded of this recently when I was decluttering a room in our basement and came across a large cardboard tube. Inside were pages and pages of sketches, finished drawings, and a few paintings I had done — at the cottage, at home, during classes I took at the AGO when I lived in Toronto, at Wyndham Art Supplies in Guelph, with an artist-friend in Kitchener, and with another artist in Elora.

As I unrolled them — page after page — my hands became dusty with charcoal and pastel chalk. Memories of the fun of applying these media to paper, of easels and of live models came flooding back. More than a few of my creations I quite liked. But what to do with them?

I don’t expect to live where I live now forever. Wherever I go from here will undoubtedly be smaller. It’s unlikely there’ll be space to spare for a big tube of art I might never bother to pull out again. None of what I’d found was something I’d hang on a wall. But throw it all out? Even the most ruthless declutter-er in me balked. I might want to look at it again some day, to remind myself of this chapter of my life.

A dangerous trap, that kind of thinking. It can lead to our keeping all manner of stuff and the longer we live the more stuff we accumulate. So I did what organizers helping people deal with their stuff often suggest. I took photographs of “MY “ART”” (as the big tube was labelled), then into the blue box went the originals — not, I confess, without a few pangs.

Months later, however, no regrets. That part of my life is not gone for having disposed of the physical evidence of it.

A recent blog post by another writer who has pursued an interest in creating visual art, Kristin Butcher — she’s very good — gave me the idea to showcase a few of my pieces here, just for fun.

By the way, the red table you see in some of the photos has also been decluttered. It went to a home where it will be used and much appreciated, instead of gathering dust in mine.

What’s something you had a hard time parting with? How did you bring yourself to do it? Please feel free to leave your answer as a comment! In the meantime, happy decluttering!