I am a hoarder.
My watercolor teacher and mentor, the fabulous Gail Bokor, told me (when she saw my piles of driftwood and shells and fishing line and scrap lumber and countless found objects) that you can’t be an artist without being a hoarder. Yay!!!! Finally, an excuse.! I must be an artist! And truly, to me, almost everything has potential as some piece of art…perhaps mixed media, or a wall hanging, or a piece of jewelry. In particular, I find beauty in everything natural I find on the beach. A shell doesn’t have to be perfect to be spectacular. Shells that are broken and with barnacles are to be treasured because their imperfections tell the story of their journey in the sea. One with holes has evidence of its interaction with mollusks that bored into it or with the salt water and waves crashing into the sandy ocean floor. Fragments have stories to tell of encounters with harsh elements or tougher opponents.
The problem is, I will never be able to use all that I have hoarded. The good news is, I have so much to choose from.
Now, my husband is a hoarder, too. Actually, that could be a good thing, because he shouldn’t complain about my “collections.” However, I must tell you that his choices of things to keep are not in the same league as mine. Once I watched him spend two entire days taking rusty nails out of boards (good) and then sorting and saving them (what?). He has multiple copies of the same science textbook, moldy from being in the garage, that say, “Someday, man will land on the moon.” I have no idea how many bicycles we have which “can be fixed.”
True story. One Christmas, one of my gifts was to be able to park my car in our garage. Finally, the day came! He pulled my car into the garage. Then came the words, “ I didn’t tell you that you could get out of the car,” and I couldn’t!
The rest of the story: I have to admit that some of his dumpster diving and insane hoarding has had incredible results. His pumpkin plywood has become a wonderful Cinderella craft cabinet. He “bits and pieces”d a bicycle storage lean-to. He delights in finding creative and inexpensive ways to use his hoarded lumber. He even built bookcases for the crusty books and the albums he rescued from the trash while at FTU (which became UCF in 1978).
In reality, we are quite the pair of “hunters and gatherers.” Or artists?
I am SO very glad he’s not blogging about my hoarding habit, because I may have sugar-coated it a bit. A lot.
As I think about what I just wrote, I realize how lucky I am. Another day of counting my blessings, being grateful to and for my husband. Loving the fact that we have the time and the health to plan and execute those plans for our “objets d’art.” And rejoicing that we haven’t gotten to the point of being featured on A & E’s “Hoarders.” Yet.