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Collecting like a child - by Tatum Dooley - Art Forecast

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I spent the last few weeks on Martha’s Vineyard decidingly not thinking about art. Instead, I walked daily on the beach looking for shells and sea glass. I became a genuine collector: scanning the beach from afar, and then bending down to get a closer look at what the terrain had to offer. After gathering rocks, shells, and glass that caught my eye, I went home and researched them. I learned about tektites and the various crabs that occupy which shells. I looked at a chart that tracked “rare” colours of sea glass and made notes. I cleaned off my finds and organized them by colour and type. If this sounds very childish, it’s because it was. As a child, I collected rocks and then Barbies. Sophie Haigney wrote about this phenomenon a few years ago in an essay titled “Accumulation and Appreciation” for affidavit. It’s hard to choose a quote to share since the whole article is so pertinent to my own experience as a collector—the universal desire to accumulate and project value. “We start co

I spent the last few weeks on Martha’s Vineyard decidingly not thinking about art. Instead, I walked daily on the beach looking for shells and sea glass. I became a genuine collector: scanning the beach from afar, and then bending down to get a closer look at what the terrain had to offer. After gathering rocks, shells, and glass that caught my eye, I went home and researched them. I learned about tektites and the various crabs that occupy which shells. I looked at a chart that tracked “rare” colours of sea glass and made notes. I cleaned off my finds and organized them by colour and type.…

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