We attach ourselves to things. Sometimes get attached to too many things, or get addicted to things, and/or get attached to things that can hurt us. Then we find ourselves in a position to criticize our attachments: “you’re too materialistic” or “you pack rat; you need a larger house because you have too much stuff. So, it can be a fine line between a healthy relationship with an object and an unhealthy relationship with an object.

The wonderful thing about things is that they don’t change as much as people or places. Our relationship with them is, or can be, one of the few static things in life, a controllable tie, a reliable link between our selves and something else in the world. For me: my blue sleeping bag, these two little Oso Negro figurines that live in every car I’ve owned, and a coffee mug I brought back from school in Scotland. I may get sick, I may get lonely, may favorite park may get bulldozed, but that mug will always be something I can hold and appreciate. I need it.

The Rosalux Gallery has a great show going on right now, called “Objects of Affection,” featuring work by Daniel Buettner and Ingrid Restemayer. I wouldn’t say that the works have a preciousness, but the objects in them or reflected in them do, to someone, perhaps to many individuals, depending on the object. This is a show not to see, but to experience. It’s like walking into a personality.

The best part is the stitching on Ingrid’s works. The viewer simply can’t ignore her interaction with the paper and object(s).