The collector

I collect photos of landscapes and paintings that move me, an inspiration bank for new art. I never know what will grease the wheel but I do know if I collect enough imagery, it fuels the tank and fills me with longing, or if I am lucky, an urge to create. I don’t know which photos I will use, or how it will come out. That isn’t the point. Captured beauty, whether my own work or by the eyes of others, is still beauty.

Sometimes I gather chert and jasper red and green, abstract art embedded in lakes or creeks. Jewels glistening in sunlight and I feel rich when I add quartz and agates to the dragon’s wealth, in the layer of memory. Our small creek filled with treasures in the crimson roots of the alder caressing the water, so like blood, tiny dark seed cones like announcing Christmas in summer.

Sometimes I collect old coins and nameless iron gleaned from the garden, and admire the way that copper mimics the plants with their verdigris dreams. The rudder board of an old boat, brass screws. And my latest treasure, a big brass number six, part of someone’s address purloined from I know not where. The nail hole to mount it to a door or fence, both long gone, turned it into a swan’s eye and once I saw that bird I couldn’t let it go. It rides shotgun on my dashboard along with the river rocks and a brass cleat waiting for a jib line to tighten the sail.

8/10 Write On! Susie Terence