I really liked this idea, and decided to go on a second field trip. For this, I went to a second hand furniture shop in Leeds called Junk Again. I interviewed the man who owned the shop, and this turned out to be the most useful aspect of my research so far.
This is the transcript:
Me: How long have you been um –
Wayne: doing this job?
Me: yeah
Wayne: I’ve been doing this job twenty
years. I’ve been clearing homes. We um we go to somebody’s home whether they’ve
been passed away or moving house, they just want to sell their items um and we
bring them here and we recycle as much of it as possible so we don’t want
anything to go to landfill. So even if I leave, I don’t know if you pass here
you see stuff outside when the shops closed. I often leave stuff outside for
people to take for free.
Me: okay
Wayne:
sofas, coffee tables, all kinds of stuff.
(customer walks in)
Wayne: Hey, good day! I’m in the middle of
an interview, you’re more than welcome to be on the recording.
-
pause in recording –
Me: What drew you to this job? Why did you
start doing it initially?
Wayne: Why did I start doing this job? Uh
my brother had a second hand clothes shop and I started helping him, and then I
realized that we could get bits of furniture and we could they were uh you know
people wanting to recycle and reuse old furniture. So that’s how I got to do
this job.
Me: Um are there any like pieces of
furniture or items that you really liked and wanted to keep for yourself?
Wayne: I keep loads for myself
Guy in background: most of it!
Wayne: I keep loads for myself, that’s the
pleasure of the job, that’s why you do the job. I like to keep everything, its
my job ya know. But particularly I like old furniture, a hundred plus years old
ya know. I like some mid century but I like really old stuff like the Georgian
chair that you’re sat on at the moment.
Me: What is it about really old stuff that
you like?
Wayne: Um, well its really made, as you can
see theres no screws in this chair, its just made with pegs
Me: okay
Wayne: so theres no bolts, theres no
screws, that is just pegged. That’s, ya know, a traditional way of making
stuff, rather than a machine way
Me: okay, are there any items or pieces of
furniture that you know have had a story behind them or anything interesting?
Wayne: Ohhh, I’ve had loads of pieces of
furniture with loads of stories. You know, I’ve had professors stuff, I’ve had
teachers cellos, ya know I’ve had items that have been missing from a family
for years and that have recovered when we’ve cleared it ya know um, I’ve had
little gems that I’ve took from a house and got really good money for, ya know,
so I’ve had all kinds of stuff that have little meanings and stories. Ya know
we clearing somebodies life, if somebody’s been bereaved and they’ve left the
house full of stuff behind, its somebodies life, ya know, so whatever they’ve
procured through their life you’re taking out the door.
Me: um, is it only furniture or do you sell
sort of like small things at all?
Wayne: I sell everything, pots, pans,
everything, whatever’s in a home. Whatever we can grab.
Looking around his shop, there were lots of interesting aspects. For example, on one wall there were lots of old photos that he had pinned up that he had collected from peoples houses. He said that he intended to cover the entire shops walls with them but had only got as far as one wall, despite the fact that he had thousands of these photos still left over. There was one person who seemed to feature in a lot of photos, particularly obscure photos. This got me to think about what Wayne had said, about when they're clearing a house they're clearing someones life. This is quite a moving and emotional thought and could be something that would be very interesting to explore for this project.
These are some observational drawings I made from visiting Junk Again. I think perhaps to further my research for this project I should talk to some people about various things that they own and the stories behind them to see if there's anything excited I could possibly illustrate or explore. I know I require some factual research for this project but I can't think what that could be besides possibly how furniture is made, or information about the historical times that these items are from. However, I don't think I can do this until I have found specific objects to focus on.
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