Landscape 4
©1997 Craig Ashby
10″ x 5″
Collage

Landscape 4 is a tortured landscape. Made of fashion magazines and one of those long compact disc boxes for Garbage’s 2.0 album. Remember those?

I used to have tons of them. A stockpile of memorabilia of beloved albums. Then a purge came and I let them go. One of many purge regrets.

I also regret letting go of my collection of old Details magazines. The old black and white ones that gave me a great education on fashion.

Equally I miss my collection of The original version of W Magazine. Big newspapers of fashion. Great stuff from the years when Gianni Versace was still alive. A Paleolithic era when supermodels stalked the runways.

I suppose this is becoming an ode to all the things I have lost. All the people and things. That tiny velvet brooch from high school stolen from my locker. That wallet and Missoni knit hat in the back of a cab.

All lost forever. Never coming back. Just memories that cause more aching than if you never had the thing to begin with.

But then you learn to let go and it’s not so bad. You keep reinforcing that it isn’t bad that you keep losing. You do this a lot like I am right now mid purge.