I hear this all the time when I encourage clients to donate items they no longer want.

Of course there are those less fortunate who would appreciate your donations, but what about:

• ARTISTS
• SET DESIGNERS
• MUSEUM CURATORS

Below is proof that your “trash” is indeed someone else’s “treasure”!!

My husband and I went to the Rolling Stones exhibit in NYC and the museum recreated the first flat that Mick, Brian, and Keith lived in at 102 Edith Grove, in Chelsea. Look closely because everything in these rooms is old and used (circa 1962) and I bet the curators were delighted to find these items in second hand stores and flea markets. (The musicians also lived like slobs!)

Last fall while visiting our son in London, we went to the Tate Modern Museum and I was quite taken with a sculpture called Babel by Cildo Meireles. It’s a floor to ceiling tower of radios! The oldest radios at the base of the sculpture date back to the 1920’s and they become more contemporary as the tower rises. It even said in the write-up on the wall that the artist found the different radios in ‘bargain shops in New York’s Canal Street’. This artwork is enjoyed by thousands every day and proof that keeping items out of landfills has value.

Don’t misinterpret my advice and hold on to things because they might be valuable some day. Instead, if you have an item in your home that you neither need nor want and it is taking up space in your home, give it away (or sell it) because you never know who else will use it and enjoy it.