When I was four years old I found a sixpence on the quay at Poole Harbour. I’ve been picking up stuff that catches my eye ever since.
Beach glass, shells, rounded stones and the sea-drift that the tide brings in.
Rusted nails and washers,
Gate hinges and horse shoes,
Marbles and chestnuts.
The lost abandoned, dropped, and discarded; the curious and cast-off.
There was the plastic soldier on a window ledge of an old abandoned farm in Deepdale, Yorkshire and a curious looking flattened bottle cap in Portugal. And the Sicilian glass wine bottle stoppers that are just too marvelous to throw away.
Old coins, subway tokens, corks, hot water bottle stoppers, metal museum tags, safety pins, cotton reels, toy soldiers, keys, enamel badges, buttons and beads.
I once found a five-pound note outside the Penny Arcade at Tooting Broadway. That was in the early 1970’s and a lot of money. I spent that fiver many times over in the weeks that followed. It was like permission to splurge and spend.
All things small and found or captivating and kept.
Can’t throw that out!
Might come in handy one day.
Look at that!
How interesting
Wonder who that belonged to.
How did that get here?
I might have a use for that one day.
I could make something of that.
That’s how collectors and hoarders and those who hate to throw anything away think. Or at least I do.
So I sorted out a whole heap of metal bits from pockets and jars and boxes and drawers and it was either throw them out or make something.
I splodged some paint on an 8″ x 8″ plywood panel and swirled it about a bit. Gave it a coat of Mod Podge just because and arranged some of the bits. Some dabs of E6000 glue and here’s how it turned out.
The shadows are from a strong late afternoon slanting sun. I rather like the effect.
I have a lot of this sort of thing and I wanted to create something but now my fingers are clumsy with arthritis and my vision unreliable. I got a start on one thing and one of the cats peed on it. Should I take a hint?
It’s quite possible – cats being the perverse creatures we know and love – that the peeing was a mark of high respect.
Love this! The words and the art. Fantastic.
“The lost abandoned, dropped, and discarded; the curious and cast-off.
…
All things small and found or captivating and kept.
…
I could make something of that.”
Written like a true appreciator of the serendipitous
Thanks Colin!
Definitely recall the fiver..a fortune for us then.
and the many times spent.remember that fifty pence i found on the way to the pub the evening my dad died?Thanks dad
X
The Railway Bell on Mitcham Road! All mock Tudor and classically gloomy with dank carpets, soggy beermats and overflowing ashtrays. It’s now a Polish supermarket.
What a nice remembered childhood moment. That wouldn’t be that sixpence in the top left would it?
I was astonished to find such treasure on the street. As my brother has pointed out – sixpence was a week’s pocket money back then. He remembers all the Dutch coasters with geraniums in the cabin windows.
The coin in the piece is actually a very battered dime that I picked up in Philadelphia. I think of it as a sixpence stand-in.
Thanks for the kind words. And you may remember that fiver too! Thank goodness you found those runners and remembered what they were good for.
This. Is very good. Beautiful combination of background colours highlighting the rustinesss of objects found; deep shadows that add to its quality. A work of art. And honest. The collecting of oddments. For just.. I like to think I clear out more bit of course I don’t. There’s these strange pieces, oddment I find set aside in a draw in case they are needed. And I think I would know what they were for….then later, being found, I have no idea. But dare I toss them out…they could be the crucial bit I will need ..if I knew what they were.So not for the beauty mine but for the purpose.last week the curtain partly dropped down from the rail. How and who could replace the curtains a the necessary day? Pandemonium ensued. Until I found in a small ceramic box containing some runners for the rail picked up and put aside years ago. Panic over.