I love this pencil case. It is my own creation. It was conceived in my minds eye, and brought into being with my hands.
Pencil cases are useful things. When I started to photograph my finished work, I wanted to show how useful it is. I collected different items of stationery from my ‘study’ aka ‘my ‘studio’ and other rooms in my house. In went small cellotape with a dispenser, pencils, pens, markers, a small hole puncher, mini stapler, highlighters. You are wondering, who carries hole punchers and mini staplers with them, lawyers! But that is another story. Nowadays, what do I carry in my pencil case? Pens, ( like biro, my lovely Cross ink pen stays in my bag, in case I lose my pencil case), colouring pencils, usbs, highlighters, cloth swatches, magazine and newspaper clips, no staplers and no hole punchers.
When I finished my photos, I took everything out of the pencil case, and returned everything to their rightful places. A while later, I had to take some information down over the phone, I was in my living room downstairs, on the shelf was an old cup full of pens and pencils. I reached for a pen to take down the note, it did not work, I reached for the next one, it did not work, and the next and the next, 5 in all. The last one, the sixth one worked. I kept the only one that worked in my freshly made pencil case and threw the others in the bin.
And that is when it struck me: this is what life is like. We keep all the redundant things, bad experiences, memories of bad relationships, bad friends, disappointments, grudges, all the things that do not work in our pencil case of life. Let us only put things that work in our pencil case of life, happy memories, that lovely smile from the shop attendant, the thank you from your neighbour you hardly see, the joy of seeing family members at Xmas and the ‘I love you’ kiss from your daughter, the ‘Wishing you Merry Xmas’ card from friends and family we have not heard from or seen for the past 12 months (not she only sends this cheap card at Xmas thoughts we harbour every year).
I therefore name this pencil case ‘Happiness in a pencil case’.
Let us only keep happiness in our pencil case.