I use things all the time. I use tools. I use materials. I use them to make things and then I use the things I have made. Sometimes the way to use something is obvious, other times not. And then there are situations where an object has multiple functions or when its intended use is hijacked for an entirely different purpose, or it breaks and finds a new use. Some of the things I have made look like everyday functional objects – brushes and lamps. These objects with their blurred existence, as simultaneously non-art and art-art objects, inhabit the border between art and everyday life, and it is with these objects as reference points, that I’d like to talk about use and using, shifted and transformed use, and what happens when I no longer want to use something.

When I think about use, I immediately think about usefulness and uselessness. At first glance it seems easy to distinguish them. Something is useful when it suits my purpose and useless when it doesn’t. But maybe it’s not so simple. I talk about the usefulness and uselessness of my art, and though initially I’m just being light-hearted, my intention is to explore how this might or might not be true. For example, when I make an art object like these brushes…

The light switch in the workshop hisses as I turn it on. I think there are ants in there, maybe getting cooked each time I flick the switch. The lights turn on, but I don’t feel safe, so I use a long-handled plastic kitchen scrubbing brush. There is nothing wrong with this brush, it could still be used for dishes but for some reason it’s found its way into the workshop. For me it became a ‘light switching tool’ because it was handy (and made from plastic). Sara Ahmed uses the term ‘queer use’ to describe such objects. This is when something is used in a way that wasn’t its originally purpose ‘or by ­those other than for whom they were intended.’⁴

She illustrates this with an example of a post box being used by a nesting bird. A caring person placed a sign on the front asking people not to post letters. The original post box is no longer a post box. It looks like one but doesn’t function as one. Another of Ahmed’s examples of unintended use comes from the early missionaries trying to convert Indians to Christianity, who noted that the Bible was not being read and understood as intended. People happily accepted the bibles but treated them as curiosities and sold them on or used the paper they were printed on as wrapping or scrap paper.⁵ Ahmed writes that queer use involves lingering ‘on the material qualities of that which you are supposed to pass over; it is to recover a potential from materials that have been left ­behind, all the ­things you can do with paper if you do not follow the instructions.’ Ahmed also suggests that queer use includes a ‘willingness to be perverse, to deviate from the straight path, the right path,’⁶ – in other words breaking the rules of use.

Use can be difficult if the objects and places are not intended for you. I’m thinking about tools that were not made for my hands. It irritates me when the mattock is too heavy, the garden tap has a stupid handle I don’t have the strength to undo, the pliers are too big, and the power tools are too heavy. I blame sexism, ableism and manufacturers who don’t care. I am forced to seek other solutions. Ahmed says that ‘those for whom use is harder are trying to use ­things in other ways.’⁷ Use is queered intentionally. There are ways around these problems, but do I have the energy all the time? Maybe just once the tool could feel like it was made for me.

I’ve talked about using things, but what happens when I stop using something, when I no longer want it or I’m tired of it or I’ve used it up and it’s no longer useful? I recently got rid of a number of art objects I had made as part of my doctoral research. They had all been exhibited and for a time I was quite happy with them, but now I no longer needed them. I didn’t get rid of everything, but I did a bit of a ‘Marie Kondo’ on many of them and kept those that ‘sparked joy’⁸. Before I threw something into the bin, I would crush or squash it. And because I love the sound and sensation of ripping paper, I ripped up many drawings, both as a way of saying goodbye but also so I couldn’t change my mind. It has been suggested to me that maybe the pleasure of ripping something into pieces can create an experience similar to the one you get from visiting a good exhibition. (Heretical thought!) 

Artists destroying their work is common. As Will Gompertz writes, ‘There are countless instances of artists destroying their own work.’⁹ Éric Watier compiled an inventory of artists who destroyed their work.¹⁰ Each example is a short sentence or two that simply states what happened, no judgement, no analysis, very matter of fact, like the following: ‘In 1923, Marianne Brandt destroyed all her paintings and joined the Bauhaus in Weimar, where she became a designer.’¹¹ Some artists get rid of their work as part of the making process, as a way of selecting or editing along the way. As Watier writes, ‘Silvia Bachli draws a lot, and fast. Then she carefully chooses the drawings to keep, organizes and files them, before destroying all the others.’¹² Some artists get rid of a work because they aren’t happy with it. ‘Eternally dissatisfied and often doubting about his talent, Paul Cezanne never stopped wrecking his work.’¹³ Some artists get rid of work as part of a move from one city or country to another: ‘In 1967, after ten years in New York, Agnes Martin destroyed all the paintings in her studio. Then she went to Cuba and New Mexico and did not paint at all for the next seven years.’¹⁴ Some artists choose to burn their work. (Who doesn’t enjoy making a fire?) Malevich burned his work before he moved from Kursk to Moscow.¹⁵ I know someone who, as a child, made cardboard houses with cellophane windows and then each Saturday morning would burn them in the fireplace. This same child made abstract paintings on foamcore with latex paint and then broke them into little pieces. I’ve trampled on my own metal wire sculptures. In some cases, the squashed result was more interesting than the original and I was tempted to keep them (I didn’t). It wasn’t necessary to totally destroy them because the originals were illusionistic three-dimensional drawings and ruining the illusion was enough.

Sometimes it’s necessary to destroy work to make room for more work. Gompertz lets us know that when ‘Louise Bourgeois disliked a small sculpture she’d been working on, she would simply shove it off the end of her kitchen table and watch it smash to smithereens.’¹⁶ Apparently, she smashed work to make room for new ideas. This is how I feel. My art objects take up space, both physical and mental. I need space, so I can think up fresh new thoughts and imagine new things in new arrangements. It seems quite obvious that one would get rid of something because you are dissatisfied with it, but it is quite different to erase, remove or destroy something you particularly like or think is good. For the sake of this article I considered destroying something I value so I would know what this feels like. But after looking around and trying to work out what this super precious art object could be and then even talking myself into it, I started to question whether the thing really was good, and what did ‘good’ mean anyway? I didn’t pursue it. I didn’t want to find out that everything I had made was mediocre.

Outsourcing is another way of getting rid of stuff. Robert Rauschenberg, wanting to test the boundaries of art, approached William de Kooning, who he greatly admired and asked if he could have one of his works to erase. In Rauschenberg’s words:

Richard Baquie on his death bed asked his wife to destroy all his work.¹⁸ (She didn’t.) Or you could take a more stand-back-and-observe approach and leave your work somewhere to see what happens. ‘In 1993, Thomas Hirschhorn deliberately left in the street a series of small cardboard pieces for the garbage collectors. They threw them in the bin.’¹⁹ I myself have put my steel sculptures out for the garbage collectors and watched as they got crushed by the truck. However, the-leave-it-out-on-the-street approach might not end with the work in the garbage truck because if someone like me came along they might pick it up and say to themselves, ‘Oh, wow! Maybe I could make something out of this.’

And what about regret? Did the artists who destroyed their work regret it? There are no clues in Watier’s short statements. Fear of regret makes me hesitate to throw something away, but I know from experience that most of the time I forget it ever existed in the first place. ‘Hubert Renard cannot precisely remember what he did with the few pieces he did not find satisfying. Although he is sure he destroyed everything that could prove their existence.’²⁰ Forgetting can be a way to get rid of something.

It is also possible to give things away. I was sorting and came upon two cushions I had made as part of my Home Exhibition²¹. The exhibition was over, and these could now be assimilated into everyday life as cushions on my sofa. I looked at them and realised I didn’t like them. Jokingly I thought to myself: Ah, that’s how you can tell if something is art…if it’s bad taste it must be art. I took them to the second-hand shop and for the sake of the cushions hoped they would find a new owner who appreciates them. I sent them off into the world. (If anyone has seen these cushions, I’ll be happy to hear from you.)

Un-making is a common activity in the world of textiles and handicraft. Claire Wellesley-Smith describes the unpicking of a damaged Indian kantha quilt that she did with a group of participants. A couple of people refused to undo what they saw as the labour of other women. For others the task of unpicking the densely stitched layer was physically difficult and one person commented that the stitches were ‘very solid’.²³ As I unravelled my work, I experienced something similar. When I first made the pieces, I remember never being sure if I was managing to hide the ends properly and imagined they would unravel very quickly. Now as I searched for the end of the yarn, it was annoying and also satisfying to know that I had hidden them securely. As I continued to make the accumulating balls of coloured yarn, I couldn’t remember what they had been. It was like all memory had been wiped. They seemed so joyful, as if released from the restraint of being a thing and returned to their materiality, they were waiting to be made into something new and fresh, so full of potential. Ready for new use.

As I was writing I kept wondering if and how getting rid of something is connected with use and using. Is throwing something away or destroying it a kind of use? Maybe, but I don’t need to force that idea because I think the connection lies in the notions of ‘useful’ and ‘useless’. When something becomes useless it is natural to want to get rid of it. And getting rid of something is a form of not using or of not wanting to use, and as the opposite of use it is inextricably linked to it. Not using is as much a part of use as using. Use does not have rigid boundaries. The altered functions of the objects in Arkhipov’s collection, Ahmed’s example of the nesting box post box and my ‘light switch brush’ serve to show how the edges of use are loose and fluid. Use depends on our needs, intentions and the situation. An object can cycle through usefulness and uselessness and back again. Making and its counterpart, un-making, are also a kind of use. When I knit, I use yarn to make something, then, when I unravel something, I’m using the yarn to make a ball of wool and then I will use this ball to make something else. Making and using are not on a linear trajectory and nor are they a one-way process. Their edges are blurred, and they move back and forth, across and along shifting in and out of focus.