Collecting, and the art of noticing

A recent Garden Rant post by my friend Lorene Edwards Forkner had me thinking about the things I focus on when I walk, walks around the neighborhood, on a beach, or in a city we've traveled to. Chances are during that walk I'll stop to pick something up, occasionally it ends up in my pocket (sometimes it's not enough just to see it, I need to live with it too).

Lorene's blog post reviewed the book Still, by Mary Jo Hoffman: "STILL began as a daily project where Hoffman would photograph a piece of nature collected from the landscape surrounding her home in Shorewood, Minnesota, then post the image to her blog by the same name. That was January 1, 2012, and every day since has found the artist adding to her collection."

Reading those words I glanced to my left, at a collection of shells and beach glass from our outing to Port Townsend, WA, back in August.

More from Lorene's review: "The power of observation pins our attention, slows time, and grounds us in place. We are what we pay attention to, and what we pay attention to becomes a part of us. Hoffman writes, “What four thousand images (and counting) have shown me is that the daily discipline of looking at the world eventually becomes the habit of living in the world.”" 

Gerhard recently commented on one of my posts saying: “You manage to see things that most people wouldn't even notice,” I took that as a great compliment. 

This seedhead (from an Arisaema consanguineum) has been moving around the house for a couple months now. I'm still not done looking at it.

Ditto for this flat white rock from the trip to Port Townsend, along with the tiniest horse chestnut I've ever seen, picked up when I went to collect a plant (a rooted piece of Parthenocissus henryana) a local blog reader generously offered me.

This wooden dish holds eucalyptus bits I brought back from our recent trip to the Los Angeles area...

As well as the final "hairy balls" from the Gomphocarpus physocarpus I grew last summer, they've dried and split open to reveal their seeds.

I'm hoping to plant those seeds this spring and have a nice crop again next year.

In the corner of our dining room there's a built-in with 3-shelves where more found items I've collected have ended up. I did a selective purge a couple years back and took a flat of interesting things to Françoise Weeks (I can’t think of a better place for them to end up), but more have followed me home.

I picked up those ginormous acorns on a garden visit in Austin, TX, the banksia seed cones came from a visit to the Davis, CA, Arboretum with Gerhard.

That's one of our magnolia's dried seed cones, vintage matchboxes I bought in a Paris flea market, and a metal car that belonged to my uncle.

Also can't help but keep every protea flower I've ever purchased, they dry so well!

Dried leaves from Lyonothamnus floribundus ssp. aspleniifolius - Santa Cruz Island Ironwood.

I have a feeling this collection of dried and dead things (there is a jaw bone in there), might give some people the heebie-jeebies.

Yep, that's a dead dragonfly.

I've been stashing things in this ceramic planter for years now. I'm sure there's some forgotten treasures at the bottom.

On the left the dried seed head of the only bloom I ever got on my Pachystegia insignis (in the small brown vase), and a fluffy seed head from a clematis bloom, along with Andrew's artwork.

So what about you? Are you a details person? Do you find yourself stopping every few feet on a walk to admire something from the natural world? Are you tempted to collect these things? 

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All material © 2009-2024 by Loree L Bohl. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.