repurposed lifemap

one of the things that i had to go through when i ordered the file cabinets was my file of inspiration tearsheets that dated back to the late 80s from magazines and other printness. it was loaded with images that surprisingly became my life now. images of chicken wire, freshly laid eggs, farmhouse funkiness and femininity from some of my favorite old magazines like country home and victoria inspired a life that formed on a slow burner for the past twenty-five years. it was actually surreal to go through it all. this huge filed assortment had become my lifemap.

when i was a young mother, i lived for mail and my monthly magazines. it was something that was all mine when my days and nights were theirs. pouring through my favorite magazines was like storing up a life for myself somewhere and last week when i was going through all of those pages, i realized that somewhere was here and now.

i thrifted this standing card holder over the holidays for five bucks and knew that it had a purpose in my new studio. in the file cabinet, there was an old folio of delicately cut images ready for decoupaging. i simply couldn't toss it in the recycling bin. to utilize all of these refound images, i decided to make toploading folio pockets to hold address labels, etsy tags for my shops, bag toppers, etc. the pockets are made out of recycled posters that i found in the recycling bin.


i measured foldovers of 5 inches by 7 inches and traced a teacup for the front cutout on each one. i decoupaged the images that i found on the front and lined the inside of the pocket with other imagery from the tearsheets so graphic prettiness would show from inside of each folio. after it was glued down, i used my sewing machine to sew up each of the sides.





there are twenty-four of these folios in this unlazy susan. instead of being filed away, this lifemap has been repurposed and has become a daily visual marker on rotate.