Someone at a Thrift Store Priced One of My Makings

Finally!

I’ve finally found something I’ve made for sale at a thrift store. It’s a long time coming. Not that I go to thrift stores looking for my own stuff, I don’t. I go to thrift stores looking for stuff to make into other stuff, that hopefully ends up at a thrift store. I have no idea how this item made it into a thrift store. I’m going to guess my way through this next part. 

 

I ended up making five or six of these mirrors, mostly by request. They’re nothing more than the back of an old book, some Scrabble letters, a plastic mirror, and some string. For a while I really got into gluing letters to things. I like signs. I like language that tries to produce a clear result but fail. I like signs that confuse. The “Good Enough” mirror could confuse. It could be an affirmation that the person in the mirror is actually “good enough,” or the sign could imply just enough. You know…fine. I think most people who wanted one of these thought of it as a positive affirmation, which I did as well, but there’s the other side.

Of the five or six I ended up making, most of them went to specific friends. I might have had one or two left over from the pile. These inevitably would have been dropped in various little libraries around Winston-Salem. Although I almost exclusively drop my makings at the little library in front of Acadia Foods, I used to drop most of them on Academy Street. That little library disappeared one day and with it, the place where I easily got rid of my somewhat creative clutter.

Since I made the “Good Enough” mirrors around two years ago, well before that library went away on Academy Street, it probably ended up there. (Maybe it was one I made for a friend, I have no way of knowing). What’s amazing about this is that someone probably picked it out of the little library, had it for a spell, and then saw fit to donate to a thrift store. It wasn’t something to immediately throw away, it was something they thought had enough value to donate. Someone else might enjoy this thing. That I like, that’s what I’m focusing on here. They could have easily have thrown it away, they didn’t.

Side note here. This is what I want done with all items I’ve made that people no longer want. Well, something in a frame, something that takes up a little more space than a small envelope filled with my nonsense. Give it to a thrift store, let it live again. Also, I don’t mind using the frames again, so give it back…I’ll cut up or repurpose the making as well.

I’m not sure all people who make stuff, want their work to end up in thrift stores. It’s like seeing your record in the discount bin, maybe. I recently bought a painting at a thrift store from a prominent Winston-Sale painter. It was only $25.00. It’s a huge painting with handwritten notes on the back for how to install it in your house. I’ve thought about contacting her about my discovery, after all, that’s what I would want people to do for me, but I haven’t. I might have even done this when I found a smaller painting of hers many years ago. I’m not sure if she was thrilled. I’ll hold off on telling her.

Four dollars seems fair. Twenty dollars would have been ridiculous. One dollar would have been too low. Whoever puts prices on things choose wisely. A perfect price. This is the first time I’ve noticed anything I’ve made go on the secondary market. I hope to find more of these in the future. If you’re interested, you can purchase the “Good Enough” mirror at the University Goodwill in Winston-Salem North Carolina.