How do you live and create well, with less stuff bogging you down? This is the subject of most of my google searches these days. Clutter clearing, space clearing, de-cluttering, minimalism, frugality, traveling light, living with less. I do a decent job of this in certain areas of life. But not the main area: my creative work. So this is a problem for me.
Regarding the sorting and care of three-dimensional objects, I asked a friend about trying (yet again) to find just the right system for organizing my mixed-media art supplies:
Am I attempting the impossible?
Or am I just going about the impossible in the wrong way?
That pretty much sums up my ongoing dilemma of being an artist who wants to live with less. When it comes to stuff, I simply just suck at keeping it organized. Maybe it’s because I’m a classic creative type. I call it being three-dimensionally challenged. Strangely, when I do finally figure out a system, it works for me. But it takes a lot of trial and error and trips to the container store to waste money on organizing solutions that don’t end up working for me.
As I pack up my life to head back to the SF Bay Area from my artist residency in LA, I’ve been thinking a lot (code phrase for obsessing) about how much stuff I have. There’s nothing like packing and moving to inspire an episode of de-cluttering mania.
For the most part I’ve always lived rather simply, at least according to the standards in the U.S. This has looked like:
- living in small apartments or lofts (from 300 to 725 s.f.),
- not having a car,
- using my bike for transport (even in Chicago),
- not having a TV,
- and not collecting a bunch of stuff.
- Except for books and art supplies. Therin lies the bane of my existence.
- Oh, and I also love clothes and good design.
In my 20’s, my minimalist lifestyle could also be called: the starving artist lifestyle.
Let’s be real. It was my financial reality, more than a philosophical ideal, that introduced me to minimalism. This was before blogs and during the 80’s, when spending and hair were big.
Sometimes, when all I really wanted to do was to go on a retail therapy bender at Bloomingdales, I would get out my dog-eared copy of Walden. It was some solace, but then I’d be sort of pissed that this was a dude doing this simple living thing, who didn’t care about clothes. Or matching bath towels, or day vs. night time facial moisturizers, or cocktail-appropriate glassware. Not to mention shoes.
Sometimes I went Bloomingdale’s after all. OK. Oftentimes. The search for salvation has happened at the mall more often than I care to admit. Thus, too much stuff buildup. Less space, less money, less traveling light.
My creative work was always the number one priority to me, so I easily made sacrifices of comfort, convenience and at times, calories, in order to have the time and space I needed to earn my living as an artist. My books and clothes were bought used. My art supplies funded by contract gigs in advertising. All was well enough. (Except for when I fell off the wagon and went shopping, noted above.)
It doesn’t help that I have a lot of interests. Workwise, for example, I’ve always been a writer, visual artist, graphic designer, then creative director. For a while I also designed a jewelery and accessories line, indulging my fashionista side. I’ve also taught workshops in addition to the above. Each of these vocations requires supplies. Plus wardrobe changes. Thoreau, I am not.
A funny thing happened as my career became “more successful”. I earned more money. I spent more money. And acquired more stuff. A hell of a lot more stuff.
Somehow, I even managed to acquire a small building, which used to be a warehouse. For me, a dream house for an artist. Over the years I’ve slowly renovated the place on a shoestring budget and turned it into two separate live/work spaces. I live in one, and rent the other out. Tools and building materials entered my life. So did furniture that I could not move myself. Oy!
When I had the opportunity to come to LA, I rented out my SF Bay Area space. As things unfolded, I sold most of my stuff, so I wouldn’t have to pay for storage space. This was a great purging, as I easily unloaded half of my stuff. If not more. I kind of wish I had tracked it better, just for the documentary value.
My main categories of purging stuff were clothing, art supplies, furniture and household stuff. Now I am left with mostly clothing and art supplies. And I find that I just want to have lots less of it all.
But how? I’ve been reading several blogs* that are talking about minimalist lifestyle design, mostly as a way to have freedom from debt, or a job you don’t like, or to be able to travel the world. Or all of the above. But as far I as I can tell, except for maybe my friend Colleen Wainwright, who just did a wonderful series on clutter-clearing on her blog, none of these folks are artists/designer types who have supply-intensive creative work.
Are there any artists out there who are moving toward a more minimalist lifestyle? If you’re out there, give a shout! I’d love to know what you’ve done to address these dilemmas. Or what you have tried, or are thinking of trying.
The questions I am asking myself:
How do I minimize my art supplies, so that I have what I need to do my work, but not so much that I am overwhelmed by stuff?
How do I then organize the remaining supplies, so they are easily at hand when needed, stowed when not.
How do I have less clothing and not look like a dork? Now, French women seem to have figured this out. Apparently, less is more. They buy quality, not quantity. And they also ride their bikes in high heels, which is reason enough to hang out in Paris, just to see.
No offense to guys, but I’m jealous that you have it so much easier being minimalist, especially when it comes to shoes. I especially want to hear from women on these issues. If you are a women who doesn’t only want to run around in Keen’s or Dansko’s, how have you minimized your wardrobe?
When I mean less clothing, I mean, like a suitcase full. Is that even possible? Considering you need wardrobe changes for different weather, casual/business, athletic activities (I swim, surf, do yoga, dance, hike, bike). Also, I do not iron. Ever.
Reminds me of the shortest poem I ever wrote:
Never iron.
In the past few days, I have had some breakthroughs about these issues, which I’ll share next week. But I’d like to combine them with your ideas, and links to blog posts, and articles, if you’ve got ‘em.
Meanwhile, tell me your strategies for living and creating more, with less.
*Here are links to my some of my favorite blogs that talk about living well with less stuff.
mnmlist.com (Minimalism is the end of organizing.)
Is a site by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits. If you don’t know about Zen Habits, and you are interested in this stuff, you’ll want to go bookmark that, too.
In Leo’s words, about mnmlist.com:
It’s about minimalism, and why it’s important today.
It’s about stuff, and how it has come to overwhelm us.
It’s about distractions and commitments and a neverending task list.
It’s about the culture of more, of bigger, of consumption.
It’s about how less is the answer.
ManvsDebt.com
Not just a man, but a family who is living and working abroad. Adam Baker is the man in Man Vs. Debt, and I appreciate his transparency and honesty about the taboo subject known as money. As Adams writes in his about page: “This blog is a real-time chronicle of my journey not only to “get out of debt,” but to “get into life.”
thistinyhouse.com
A blog about living in tiny spaces. Says Hillary, the author:
My desire to own my own tiny home (and not go into debt) led me to buy a used lightweight fiberglass travel trailer in January of 2008. (I can tow it with my fuel efficient car!) Michael and I have been fixing up this 50-square-foot space and customizing it for traveling and full-time living.
EarlyRetirementExtreme.com
What I love about this site is the “extreme” part. Meaning, all of the ideas are not for everyone, but it gives such good food for thought, that you’re brain is bound to stretch into some new territory that previously seemed impossible. At least, that’s what happened for me. Good stuff!
Related posts:
Howdy! I’m Lisa Sonora Beam, author of The Creative Entrepreneur. I teach people how to get unstuck and use their creativity to make a living doing what they love. 
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Lisa-
What a great article !! // I’ve been in the processing of minimalizing for years now it seems. // My solution to the creativity aspect, for myself, has been to move to a digital format for my art. // Not easy, but I think very worth it. // && as far as shoes goes.. I used to have 80+ pairs && now I’m down to less than 5. // talk about a hard process !! // it’s true that i miss some of them, but I’m left w/ the feeling that what I do have left is the quality.
Cheers && thanks for a great read !!
I have this exact issue – when clutter-clearers talk about getting rid of everything, they don’t think about the stuff that appears to be clutter that an artist *needs*! what to do? ugh.
exactly!
Re-reading this a few months later (and my own crap load lightened further), I can say that the Frenchwoman thing is key: we ladies in the U.S. have been sold a bill of goods about clothes, and it’s to sell us more clothes!
Even if you buy clothes inexpensively, as I always have (paying retail is anathema to me!), it sucks your time both on the acquisition end and the getting-dressed-every-day end (and forget about packing for trips—UGH!).
I’m getting very close to plunking down big cash (for me) for a custom-made solution: a suit, a couple of jackets, a couple of pairs of pants. Along with the annual (okay, biannual—I’m cheap!) purchase of jeans/underwear/socks, that should do it. I’m even considering saying “I don’t do skirts anymore” b/c it eliminates the clutter of that additional wardrobe option, with all of its accessorizing. It’s just the idea of summer that’s killing me there: no skirts in summer? It’s the only good part about being a girl, sartorially speaking!
I still have no solution for the books/art materials thing. How do you create art without raw materials? Can you release stuff each time you travel, trusting that more stuff will show up?
My own solution has been to move closer and closer to the life of a writer. If/when I move, there will still be furniture, laser printer, etc. to deal with (and I don’t even want to think about giving up my art *collection*), but less crap.
I guess for artists there is always that tension b/w freedom and being tied down to a studio with your stuff.
Have you thought about a project where you interview successful artists about how they’ve dealt with it? What does Ed Ruscha do, I wonder? Or is he so rich now he can have studios everywhere he goes?
@Colleen: I think it’s a great idea to do a series of interviews of artists who are successfully dealing with the flotsam factor. Maybe I’ll start with you?!
I’ve come along way since I wrote that post — will provide an update soon of how I’m managing in Mexico with so little stuff.
My mantra: subtract. subtract. subtract. be mindful of adding.
And thanks for addressing the clothes issue. More on that coming up, too. I have found that having few things of higher quality is actually much less expensive that the other way around. So your custom-made solution might well end up being less costly in the long run. Not to mention the space that is cleared up in the home and brain when we simplify the wardrobe=priceless.