CLEAN SWEEP

The season is changing, and every year many people across the world likewise rejuvenate their homes as part of National Spring Cleaning Week, on from the 6th – 12th of March this year. We are celebrating this seasonal opportunity to refresh our homes and our minds alike by digging into the Selvedge archives and pulling out a brief but beautiful article from as far back as issue 16 of Selvedge… Don’t brush off the beauty in everyday things… In the nature of things (1942), French poet Francis Ponge lyrically describes a crate, a candle, and a washing machine. Not once, though, does he depict a scrub brush or a broom, and this is unfortunate. Such a simple household tool should have been of the utmost interest to this poet of the ordinary. The brush is in fact exactly the sort of object Ponge treats in his book: those things we see so much we no longer really see at all. Who doesn't know what a brush is? The commonness of its use leads us to believe that there is little to say about it, that there’s nothing to it. Like all such objects, the brush has been unjustly condemned to silence. With just a little probing, however, one might succeed in awakening this talkative witness of our history.   Brush by Daniel Rozensztoch and Shiri Slavin, Pointed Leaf Press Animal-shaped lint or clothes brushes made of varnished wood, from England and France, dating from the 1950s and 1960s http://www.springcleaningweek.com/ Images: One kings Lane and Hen & Hammock