I am a collector. A treasure hunter.
Not for dust collecting stuff that’s whole purpose is to increase in value and earn the collector a future huge fortune.
My treasures are hidden in the woods, nestling in the leaf littered ground under trees, laying on a warm sandy beach or perched where they may have been for years on the edge of a rock pool. Not worth anything to most, not even noticed by many.
Walking the dog is never just walking the dog for me however determined I am to stay focused on Daisy and her little piece of the day. We walk in rain, wind, and sun and never come home without trailing or carrying some incongruous piece of driftwood, leaf, lichen, shell or seaweed and always with pockets bulging. Nothing is too misshapen, old or even smelly if it has promise. The potential is naturally different each day depending on my mood or current work or possibly even depending on nothing!
Is it potential? ……to be immortalized in a watercolour, oil, sketchbook or to be displayed carefully, of planes admired regularly until the idea comes for its reason to be in my life. Sometimes a little drawing “just because” or occasionally to take part in group activity and be part of a larger, grander oil or mixed media canvas. Occasionally a series of pictures roars into my head from a few of these treasures and that’s like a runaway train….scary and with no brakes. How so much time planning and rolling ideas around can be devoted to so much minutiae fascinates even me. There are those that need to jump out of planes, hurl themselves off mountains and swim the seven seas to gain the thrill I get from seeing the first daffodil or cherry blossom then rushing home to draw it.
The world needs us all surely?
When my studio and small house start to groan under the weight of stones and shells it is time to return some of these babes to the shore or woodland always of course hanging onto the few very special ones.What actually constitutes special I can’t honestly say.
This tiny island of ours offers so many different beaches each rather strangely and ridiculously offering different shells and stones to each other. Some with serious looking stones all “shades of grey” with fascinating white stripes, some great piles of tiny yellow and orange winkle shells. Who knows why discovering a piece of blue and white pottery is such a coup, totally bonkers really. The cliff walks between our beautiful bays are breathtaking, climbs down to secluded beaches magical and country lanes often divinely secluded. All a treasure hunters paradise.
This collecting obsession is incurable……..thank goodness.
