The Technique of Stacks

Ms V was a keen artist since her childhood. She admired colours, be it flowers or famous pieces of fine art. Snippets from booklets, photos of models from magazines, pamphlets and calendars decorated her bedroom. Everything she found visually stunning, she collected. Ms V was a painter herself and kept mastering her skill through sketches and paintings which she kept to see the improvement. The only art she yet had to master was the art of letting go.

After Ms V had an accident and badly injured her shoulder, she decided it was time to move to a smaller place. To do that she had to say goodbye to some of the things she collected over the years. Not only the mental pain of detaching herself from the past but also the physical pain and weakness in her arm were holding her back. GoodGymers Sevan and Kash ran from Ealing to help her with that.

The duo was hoping for Ms V to draw a mental sketch of what has to be done to start sorting and packing the items for her future move. None of that happened! Ms V tried to explain her approach just as if a Pointillist would paint dots on her canvas one by one until the whole picture is revealed. Finally, Sevan and Kash understood they could start by finding six folders with Ms V's art and moving them into the living room so that she can review the contents there in her own time. That was a start!

Next, Ms V directed GoodGymers to move the stack of paintings and the vinyl records behind them to another place. Then she wanted to put them back where they were. After asking to move the stack back and forth again, Ms V looked through the paintings to choose what to do with them. She decided to keep them in the same place. The records faced the same fate even though Ms V was keen on selling or donating them. One step forward, two steps backwards.

While working through her past with Sevan and Kash, Ms V took a trip down memory lane and reminisced about friends she cherished, galleries she visited and art classes she attended. She enquired whether the GoodGym folk heard about the painters she appreciated: from Vermeer, through Matisse and Renoir, to Hockney. She wouldn't let go of any copies of their art either - even those printed on the pamphlets. On a positive note, Ms V discarded a few papers including two of her sketches that she deemed too poor to keep.

Sevan and Kash soon found out that anything related to art had sentimental value to Ms V. Luckily, she directed them to the bookshelf where they hoped she will be more decisive about what to keep and what to donate. Ms V asked the GoodGymers to empty two shelves and put the books and brochures at the coffee table in the living room where she was going to review them. She was not able to do this herself because of her injury. Art books and psychology books dominated the collection, with the addition of guidebooks and fiction. This task was a bit more successful - half of a carrier bag was filled with books to donate. The key question that led to that victory was: "Can you read such a small print?". Another triumph was finding the Italian phrasebook Ms V was looking for, inspired by Andrea Bocelli's song about saying goodbye (how relevant!).

After 90 minutes Sevan and Kash had to leave Ms V with the remaining stacks of books and pamphlets on the coffee table to go through. They left all the things in places where the conflicted artist could safely reach them and make the decision about each item's fate. Hopefully, the chat with young, practical people and an injection of GoodGym energy inspired Ms V to continue the process.