Do you have a favorite thing to collect?
My daughter use to collect pigs until one day she said, "I liked pigs but now look? Everyone gives me pigs."
I like to collect soft silk ribbons, and portrait pins.
I am not a girly girl. But I do like the look of girly girl things in tiny doses.
Old papers.
Handwriting.
Monograms.
Rosary beads that are worn from prayer.
I like to collect things that their story is written on them:
Things that were used loving and kept.
Broken fragments elements.
Like dreams that remain no matter how hard life has been.
Courage to hang on when the fire sang a soothing song.
Books with engravings.
Books with ruffled pages.
Books that have titles such as Devotions of the Heart.
Books that someone has signed their name in the inside cover.
I don't need any more books… but still, I cannot help myself.
And then there are frames.
Empty frames are a favorite.
Ones where I can layer other empty frames together.
Holding space.
Holding the possibility.
Eighteen century shoe buckles.
Do you collect something odd?
Bubble gum wrappers, old movie snubs, broken glass, baby teeth.
I have a snip of my Father's hair. I cut a bit of it before he died.
Touching it … well it is him… a physical part of him.
I understand mourning art.
Isn't that what collections are?
Tender engravings.
Gilded flowers.
Muted colors.
Century-old things that speak the same message for today.
History.
Fragments show me that imperfections are beautiful, that beauty isn't always perfect and having a purpose.
Seashells.
White on white.
When I listen I can hear a deep sea of silence, and the silence is profound, memories roll in and out, connecting pass to present and present to past.
Silk bows for children's shoes.
A mother's hand,
late at night as the children slept;
Folding and sewing the bows to the tiny buckles.
Attaching them to her daughter's shoes.
And while she did she smiled.
A stone urn holds old books instead of flowers.
We can do it differently and its okay.
A bookshelf doesn't have to be a straight line.
A pair of angels helping one another.
They are missing their feet.
They are holding a humming bird.
Did you ever see the movie the SONG CATCHER… the collection of song?
See a clip of it here….the songcatcher
What do you collect? Is there a story behind the collection?
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