So let's finish up with some simple decoration. Using found objects always gives a space more individuality and more character. Picking up found, man-made objects almost always ends in tweezing out splinters and a tetanus booster. So I like picking up 'natural' objects. Although, this habit has resulted in plenty of contact dermatitis and a few nasty spider bites. But if you are doing anything in the arts, you are just asking for an increase in doctor visits anyway.
So this is what has happened to a dark, little, corner table. There is a Mother In Law's Tongue on the left, a little case in the back (it is housing my Play-Dough), a Cypraecassis rufa shell, an emu egg (received as a gift and made a tasty flan), agates in matrix, and two halves of a fossil.
I picked up the fossil on a rock hounding trip last summer. I was digging in several locations in Central Oregon and this guy was plucked out of the ground in the John Day Fossil Beds, near the Painted Hills. It has a conifer frond and a deciduous leaf. Definitely my favorite stone from that dig. The matrix is a very fragile mudstone, so cleaning isn't really possible. So there is the organic 'gunk' of root remnants still clinging to the surface. We'll just call it character.
I have no idea when this guy was picked up. I know it is from the Oregon Coast (probably from Oceanside Beach) because I have found similar rocks there before... and that's where my family tends to go.... and I took it from my family. There's a tip right there: for ultimate cost savings, take things from family members. Not that my family really cared about this one pieces; they were glad that I wanted it. The outer stone matrix seems to be basalt and the agates are a lovely green quartz material (not sure exactly what, its a chalcedony, maybe chrysoprase).
This shell fossil was also from Oceanside beach. I love going to that beach in particular because just about everything turns up there: fossils, crystals, sea lions, etc. Anyway, this fossil made it onto the windowsill and I found it somewhat poetic to pose a carved serpentine bird next to it, looking on introspectively. I got the bird from a fantastic art show/installation of Zimbabwean stone sculptures in the Missouri Botanical Gardens a few years ago. Next to the bird is a little sand dollar on a stand and peaking out from behind the fossil is a tiger aloe, which I planted sans soil in a glass vase, suspended by reindeer moss and even more agates.
So start picking up more stuff! And watch out for spiders.
Last of the rock links:
John Day Fossil Beds:
Painted Hills:
Missouri Botanical Gardens:
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