I spotted the gilt frame from a distance. I didn’t bother stopping to look at all the other shelves between where I stood and my new-found target. It’s like the thing emanated a magnetic field that pulled me in. Everything else fell to the margins. If I had passed a bar of gold, I wouldn’t have noticed it. If William Shakespeare sat in one of the old chairs they placed at the front of the store, I wouldn’t have cared. I had never felt such a feeling of tunnel vision. In my single-mindedness, I bumped into someone without saying, excuse me. That should tell you how obsessed I’d become in a matter of seconds.

The Before

I've had this purse for at least fifteen years. I bought it at the Green Room, in Stratford, long before I moved here. Through the years, it has put up with quite a bit of rough and tumble handling. The leather exterior has been marked up so badly, I actually bought a new purse. After about two weeks, that new purse had parts of the exterior vinyl rubbing off. Time to donate it—so I did.

I'd held onto my marked-up original, just in case. Its design, size and colour are exactly what I've always wanted. I've tried using shoe polish to even-out the marks, but it never lasted for long and did not make much of a difference. I didn't know what else to try until I noticed a small red dot of acrylic paint near the top opening. I don't know how that ended up on there, but being an artist, it could have happened whenever I had a project going on.

I tried to scratch it off with my fingernail. It wouldn't budge.

That little accident gave me an idea…

No one else can ever know about
the expensive smelling man
who wore trashy earrings
that sparkled like real diamonds.

Inspired by writer Austin Kleon, and his blackout newspaper process, I wanted to give the exercise a go myself. Unfortunately, I usually have printed flyers on hand, not newspapers. So, I went scrounging around in my "writing" folder on my computer for some raw material.