Magic in the Charity Shop …

So, while I can only practice my stop motion animation techniques in ‘my’ studio down the road a bus ride away! I plan to look closely at my ‘story’ and the Charity Shop (s) where unwanted items, clothes, household goods, books and records are deposited by the local community and sold on to the local community.

The shop and its voluntary workers become a microcosm of the locality. 

People for many reasons bring unwanted items to the Charity Shop, such as moving to a smaller house, decluttering, redecoration or just fatigue or boredom.

The gifts or donations are as wide ranging as the neighbourhood itself.  Furniture and electrical goods must be in good repair, but they are often outdated, and miss matched beside things like pictures, books, records, tasteless ornaments, and vases.

All clothing is accepted and useful even it is well worn and has holes. Anything that is not sold will be used in the textile recycling industry and remains vital in charitable concerns. 

I fully understand how charity shops, as if by magic give used items a second life and prevent thousands of tonnes of stuff ending up in landfill.

Furthermore, charity shops give us all in the community a tiny social place where we can update our wardrobes, enjoy vintage, retro and possibly an antique item to decorate our homes, add to our libraries and record collections at a fair price and feel that we are contributing to a charity and helping others beyond our immediate world.

For my part I wish to celebrate the service of the Charity Shop and allow my dolls to explore and enjoy the atmosphere of mismatch, ordinary, outdated, shabby, unfashionable, and relic etc.  

Bringing value to the unworthy.