Article: Why Do We Always Save the Good Candles?
Or, as Dita Von Teese - and, paraphrasing Erma Bombeck before her - put it rather more elegantly, don't save your good knickers!
There’s a candle in my house - and, statistically speaking, probably some rather lovely lingerie in one of your drawers - that has survived three Christmases.
Not because I don’t like it.
Quite the opposite.
I adore it.
It smells incredible.
The glass is beautiful.
It cost enough that every time I think about lighting it, a tiny voice in my head whispers,
"Don’t be so extravagant."
I suppose I'm waiting for the perfect occasion.
Which is interesting.
Because I have absolutely no idea what that occasion is.
A spontaneous visit from Pete Doherty?
Brigitte Bardot and Sophia Loren coming for drinks?
That calibre of mystery, mischief and old-school glamour warrants ALL the good candlelight.
Until then...
...the candle waits.
The strange thing is, almost everybody seems to do this.
The expensive notebook.
The "good" perfume.
The fancy hand cream.
The beautiful stationery.
The special bottle of wine.
The silver cutlery and napkin rings that prance, sparkling, out of their pretty little boxes only on Christmas Day.
We buy beautiful things...
...then spend years protecting them from the very thing they were made for.
Being worn.
Burnt.
Drunk.
Written in.
Ravished.
Devoured.
Ripped off.
Whatever their end goal was...
we're not doing it.
Saving things for later
We buy the good stuff, then refuse to use it.
The candle stays unlit.
The lingerie stays optimistic.
The silverware waits for a state occasion.
Because somewhere along the line, we decided poor old Tuesday lacks the necessary credentials.
We've quietly assigned beautiful things to a future version of ourselves.
But what if that future version of ourselves is…
DEAD?
Not "eventually, in the abstract, everyone dies" dead.
Actually dead.
Hit-by-a-bus-on-the-Tesco-run DEAD.
The candle's still in the cupboard.
The lingerie's in the drawer
The good silverware doesn’t leave the pretty box.
Soz to be dramatic BUT, for the purposes of this article: you die.
The good stuff stays exactly where it was.
Objects don't become special because we save them
They become special because we live with them.
A favourite mug isn't valuable because it sat untouched in a cupboard for ten years.
It's valuable because you've drunk six hundred cups of coffee from it.
Because the handle fits your hand without thinking.
Because it's been with you through ordinary mornings that quietly became your life.
That's what objects do.
They collect us.
Not the other way around.
The tiny scratches.
The faded corners.
The wax dripped down the side.
They're not flaws.
They're evidence.
People sometimes assume that because we make sculptures and art, we're precious about them.
We're really not. I have EVERY single piece of sculpture that BAG&BONES has EVER made in my house,
And I can tell you they get touched.
Moved.
Repositioned.
Photographed from ridiculous angles.
Our lamps get switched on every evening.
The neon wasn't made to impress guests.
It's there for Tuesday.
Poor old Tuesday deserves the hot neon glow every bit as much as Saturday does.
That's the whole point.
Because the object isn't waiting for life to happen.
It's part of it.
Maybe that's why the objects we end up loving most are rarely the ones that stayed perfect.
They're the ones that stayed with us.
The candle eventually burns down.
The notebook fills up.
The perfume runs out.
Splattered Bearmouse gathers tiny stories that nobody else would notice. The observer has seen things he’ll take to his sculpture grave.
That's a far nicer ending than leaving everything wrapped up for an imaginary future that never quite arrives.
The BAG&BONES philosophy
Beautiful objects aren't meant to survive your life untouched.
They're meant to become part of it.
Burn the candle.
Wear the sexy lingerie.
Drink the good wine.
Be decadent with your surroundings.
Scatter beautiful art & sculpture with reckless generosity.
Never ration beauty.
Life is far too short to save the things that make you feel something.
BAG&BONES – made to be enjoyed.
