One person’s salad is another person’s compost

A funny thing happened today while I was making my lunch.

I spent about twenty minutes making a glorious salad for one. I know it’s autumn but I can eat salad in any weather. Glyn had a cheese and tomato croissant which he had finished while he waited for me to finish all my chopping. He likes a quick fix.

As usual I used far too many ingredients and needed a bowl so I could toss it before arranging it on my plate. I had fresh chopped parsley, thinly sliced celery and cabbage, crunchy radishes, cucumber patiently peeled and deseeded, carrot peeled and julienned, olives, mixed lettuce and a gorgeous chopped medjool date to give it a little zhuzh.

I was really looking forward to a fabulous lunch. I like volume when I have salad. I was almost ready to toss it when I decided to cut up an avocado and put it decoratively on my plate like a little fan.

Glyn had been pottering around generally tidying up all the vegetable peelings while he made us both a cup of tea. Being the thoughtful husband he is, he decided it was time to empty the overflowing compost bucket that lives under the sink. Bless.

By the time he came back to the kitchen I had created more vegetable scraps for the now empty bin. I’d piled them up on the sink ready for the return of the empty compost bucket. Glyn diligently put all the peels and scraps into the compost bucket while I cut the avocado.

I turned back to the salad bowl and it was gone. Was I losing my mind? I asked the air where my salad was and Glyn groaned behind me. He was holding a once more full compost bucket and I knew immediately what had happened.

Instead of me tossing it the salad with dressing Glyn mistook it for scraps and tossed it out into the compost bucket.
His heart sank and he felt like the biggest fool. He asked if I wanted him to salvage it from the questionable bucket. No thank you.

Thankfully I had some ingredients left over and made another salad. Not quite as nice as the first one. I was a bit over all the peeling and chopping.

It got me thinking…

Sometimes we create something and others don’t see it the same way we do. What I see as creativity, another person might see as something to be monetized. Or even worse, they see junk.

A person I follow on instagram makes little landscape collages using fabric and embroidery. Someone commented asking her why she does it. Does she make them to sell? Are they for an exhibition? Does she give them as gifts? Like, what’s the point?

I’ve never understood why people need to monetise everything. It’s as if something only has value if it can be sold or mass produced.

When I was younger I came up with an idea for a children’s cook book for my children. It would have pictures of each step next to the words. My dad thought it was a brilliant idea and encouraged me to make it. ‘You could make a fortune selling that. Get a production line going and you’ll sell them by the truckload.’

The effect his words had on me took the joy out of it somehow and I didn’t want to make it anymore. Thankfully someone else wrote one the next year and I bought it. Isn’t that always the way?

The feeling that anything I make needs to be about selling stuff still bothers me.

I like to draw little pictures, cute characters, rows of houses, chickens and farm animals. Doodles really. My friend said they would look great on a tea towel or a mug and people would buy them. It’s true, they probably would look cute on a mug or a tea towel. Except that I would no longer enjoy drawing them. I instinctively know it would be too much pressure if I knew I had to make money from making it.

I haven’t the first clue about how to put my art on anything anyway. The idea of a production line and all the packaging and posting that would be involved does my head in.

I would like to make cash from my art. It would be nice to have a little income on the side. Whenever I consider it, the part of me that rebelled whenever dad told me to make money out of my ideas get’s it’s back up good and proper. I know I can be a tad oppositional. My mother said I was contrary. I call it bloody minded. I just don’t like to be told.

It’s more than oppositional though. When I think about monetizing my arts and crafts something inside me dies a little bit and the wind drops out of my sails.

I tried selling my art once a few years ago. I spent months making a heap of arts and crafts stuff and put them up for sale at a local Christmas market. I made felt Christmas ornaments, children’s toys, baby books and pin cushions. I even made bejewelled quilting pins.

One of the items was a black and white baby’s felt book. Apparently new borns are stimulated by black and white pictures. I spent hours and hours designing, drawing and sewing the little book and put a price on it. I thought it was reasonable for the time and effort I’d poured into it.

People were picking up my things and deciding their worth. The felt books I’d taken hours and hours to design and hand sew were deemed too expensive. The Christmas decorations were handled and inspected all over and put back when they looked at the price tag.

It was demoralising. I began to doubt their worth. Maybe what I’d made was crap after all. Perhaps friends and family were being polite when I gave them hand made gifts?

Mine were made to be handed down through generations, not to mention one of a kind. It didn’t matter that I sold heaps and actually made money. It killed my joy.

I sold the felt books for half price in the end. The woman selling beeswax and honey at another stall bought them. I was happy with that because she had a newborn in a papoose and she seemed like a lovely person. I nearly gave them to her for nothing.

I’ve never sold my work anywhere since. I’d rather give them to my family and friends as gifts or keep them to enjoy myself. Family have assured me they like them. Phew! The motivation behind making something as a gift is different. I love to make things as gifts and it brings me joy.

When our grandchildren were small I made hundreds of craft items and spent hours designing and making them. I thoroughly enjoyed figuring out how to make them. The process fascinated me.

Whether I am drawing, painting, spinning, knitting, sewing or writing for me it’s about the process. I enjoy designing, planning, learning how to do whatever it is and then finally finishing a piece and using it or gifting it. Making for the joy of making.

I’m not sure why the salad incident reminded me of this dilemma I have with making and selling stuff. It has something to do with perspective, something to do with the value of things, something to do with being told what to do— I can’t quite put my finger on the correlation. I hope it makes sense to you.

The salad incident will go down in the family funny stories for many years to come. Thanks for reading. Leave me a comment if you have time. I’d love to hear what you think about the dilemma.