More Fragments of History

Finds from Gloucester and Salem today - the weather was sunny and a little brisk - perfect. It sure helps to use fingerless gloves in the winter.

Some of the shards I find on the shore surprise me when I learn their age.

Ceramics are chemically stable and maintain their original colors and glazes even when tumbling on the seabed or buried underground.







These shards are "fragments of history" ... I wonder about the meals served, the flowers they held, the mantels they decorated so many years ago.

They'll be set, grouted and framed into backsplashes, shrines, and furniture. I've also got a vision of making tiles from these shards.

This week is the deadline for me to apply to go to an artists' retreat for 2 weeks to study with a master tile maker in North Carolina.

A rare find today -  beautiful red shard of seaglass

Sea Glass and Loss

There have been times when I’ve been seaglass hunting that I’ve found an exquisite piece of pottery … I’ve picked it up and thought I put it in my bag, only to realize when I got home that it somehow didn’t make it in the lot.  It could have been due to a hole in the bag - it could have been that I missed the bag because I wasn’t focusing on it at the time. It could be because I was just not meant to have it. But I can still remember some of them months later and maintain the thought of the improbable chance that I would find one of them again.

A Different Kind of Hunt

Early this October I got to hunt for deer. At this stage in life I'm not sitting out opportunities to try different experiences, so with a little archery experience behind me, I was off to the Mountains. I spent a glorious week in a cabin with the bare necessities; there was no internet signal, infrequent cell phone reception at best, and no television. I woke up each morning with the vibrant autumn leaves reflecting in the lake from the living room/front porch. Food and coffee tasted so much better, the air was so crisp and clean, the roads were empty, the people so friendly. I cared not for makeup and clothes, my to-do lists, or a clean house. I went to bed so early, and woke up refreshed. It was a trip back in time that opened my eyes to the life I'm living and what would be good to change when I returned. 

The first time I shot a crossbow I loved it - my success on target had a lot to do with that. My only frustration was being too weak to cock the bow myself. I knew I would have no problem with actually killing a deer if given the shot, not because I'm blood thirsty, but because I knew it would go to good use being eaten.  I had been in a car that hit a deer years ago, and it was a serious accident; also I know that deer are prone to overpopulation. Besides I wanted an excuse to wear camo (just kidding, but it was comfortable and warm!).

The hunting was peaceful - first afternoon-dusk in a blind in a farmer's field; next at dusk high in a tree stand on a very windy day, and finally in a blind on a mountain near an apple tree on another windy day. I had little problem being still and quiet, which surprised me given I hadn't thought to bring reading material to the blind. The closest I got was a buck who came to the apple tree, but the wind shifted in a split second and he smelled us despite all the scent killing soaps and sprays; he bolted and never returned.

Hunting deer is so different than hunting sea glass, yet just as meditative and thrilling. I enjoyed every cloud, every leaf, every sound, and every chance to see a living creature (I'm talking about a squirrel here) going about it's natural life, unaware of my presence.  And hey, there's always next year because I can't wait to go back!

There is pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar:

I love not man the less, but Nature more,

From these our interviews, in which I steal

From all I may be, or have been before,

To mingle with the Universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

- Lord Byron 

Take Another Look

TAKE ANOTHER LOOK

A few recent finds

I've had the good fortune of doing a lot of sea glass hunting lately. Alas one of my 'best' sites I discovered last spring is actually contaminated with toxic chemicals so I'm no longer allowed to hunt there (damn, I knew there must have been a reason I was the only one who ever combed that beach and found some really great stuff!). Now I've been hunting mostly in Salem and Gloucester, and with the recent waves whipping up from distant Atlantic hurricanes, some beautiful pottery, marbles and glass have turned up. I'll be photographing a catalog of my best finds from this summer later this month - but for now, I'll just say that an important lesson I've learned in sea glass hunting is to "take another look." After lots of sea glass hunting this past year (I have literally at least 100 pounds of it that need to be sorted and stored for winter art work), I sometimes get a bit blase about bending over for "just another white piece of pottery," especially when my muscles and joints are quite sore from an hour or two of the repeated activity. When I do start walking away, sometimes a nagging little voice in my head says, "No, really! You need to pick that one up." Inevitably, when I turn the piece over I find it has a beautiful pattern or writing on it. Not every time, but frequently enough to make me wonder -  is someone tagging along with me - a spirit of a past relative, or a guardian angel who also enjoys my past time and doesn't want me to miss out on a treasure?  I wish I had that same luck with the lottery ("hey little voice, can you give me 6 good numbers today?!"), but in the big picture, I realize that I'm incredibly fortunate to live where I live, to travel where I go, to gain the knowledge I have and keep getting, and to be able to collect these tiny links to the past which have the ability to thrill me. I have big plans for all the sea pottery and glass I've collected - hopefully I'll be working on it this coming winter. Sea glass hunting allows time for introspection and mindfulness. "Take another look" also applies to my daily life, when I'm not really looking at some people, situations or things as thoughtfully as I should.

Kick in the Catalyst re: Time Talent and Energy (TTE)

Sometimes it's saying goodbye to another soul that causes you to reflect on your own life, and how much time you have left, and what you will do with it. It's a kick-in-the catalyst from the universe. We are only given so much time (unknown), an amount of energy (known), and some talents (mostly known). If you line them all up properly in a worthwhile pursuit, in theory you'll be successful and satisfied. I've been promising myself most of my life that I will be an artist "someday."  I went to MassArt and got my BFA, but then I quickly returned to a sure and steady paycheck from a cubicle, surrounded by time clocks and rules and incompetent management. And I was miserable.  I left the cubicle behind, but I've still allowed other obligations to drain me of TTE - these obligations were artificially important. Today - one rainy day in August - things have become crystal clear. That "someday" is now.  My daughter is my inspiration - she devotes a lot of time to her art and it shows; she graduated from MassArt in May and has her first professional job as an artist starting tomorrow.  I hereby shed the artificially important obligations and responsibilities that I have allowed to consume me for the past few years, to start my "someday."  My artwork will heal me and open up the spiritual door which I've kept closed too tight too long.

Thankful for another day

Today was the first day I've been seaglass hunting in over a week. It's an almost daily obsession, and as of late has primarily been in Salem, MA. I was away because I had an adventure on a sailboat going to Provincetown for the 4th of July weekend. Mechanical problems kept us there an extra day (not a horrible place to be stranded though). The trip ended with an unplanned midnight swim for me off a slippery dock which truly cashed in another one of my 9 lives. So as I poked around Derby Wharf today, bruises and muscle strains too sore to bend down much except for extra-extra-good treasures, I recognized that I was grateful to be alive on a beautiful summer day, still doing one of the things I love best.

Now I've found some cool things in my shore walks - from tiny frozen charlotte dolls, to marbles, to beautiful pieces of pottery and old glass bottle inkwells. I've found old lead soldiers, a ring, and a couple of faucet nozzles which looked new enough to take home and try out (only to find out they were inoperable). But today has to take the prize as the most humorous and unusual for me. I bent down to pick up what looked like a pretty piece of orange and red pottery with what I thought were barnacles on it. Instead, it turned out to be a very old partial denture. I have to figure out how to date it - the 3 teeth on it are very small so I'm guessing it was a woman's plate. It seems like a very brittle plastic - maybe a precursor to lucite or something - and the teeth were affixed by sort of jamming them on it. I wonder what the story was behind this denture ... Did she meet her demise at sea? Did she accidently flush the denture down a toilet and it ended up in Salem Harbor? Did she lose it in the ocean laughing as her lover tickled her in the waves? That's what I enjoy most about my finds; pondering the stories behind them, identifying the pottery marks or the age of the glass bottle; thinking about the child who was playing with the tiny porcelain doll. We are all connected through history and time by the things that remain.