Ingredients

Where some people see scrap, I often see ingredients.

Only when it really doesn’t fit with social expectations can I curb my collecting, but I will usually come home with something I didn’t leave the house with earlier in the day.

Leaves, paper scraps, foil and cellophane from sweets, sketches and photos of interesting shapes, patterns and textures; jotted words and phrases from the radio, books, internet or my own head. Findings!

Today I resisted the feathers I saw scattered on the verge as I walked to work. Thinking roadkill, bird-flu, infection, dirt. I saw more feathers, one was 7-8 inches long with a fluffy plumed edge and speckly pattern. Conscious of passing driver’s impression of a grown adult picking up and stashing litter from the roadside. More feathers, smaller but irresistibly velvety. Their owner must have come to an unfortunate end to lose so many clothes. Pheasant? (no corpse), idk.

Thinking aside, when I got to work there was, in my bag, a perfect, elegant, inspirational, new-to-me ingredient.

It wasn’t until I photographed it I discovered it’s a feather and a half!

It might be a subject to draw, a shape to photograph, to inspire. It might act as a brush, then retire to join one of many collages. When the time comes, it will be an ingredient in at least one something I make.

It also looks (to me) like a tiny porcupine with no face.