La Belle Brocante

Nest

From Brocante Girl's grand-mère, a swallows' nest abandoned in the old goat barn. 1960s? 1970s?

Straw. Slips of plastic. Wool. Feathers. Make use of the materials at hand. 

3 perfect eggs.

Plan for the days ahead.

Progress

Wooden boxes. Gesso. Medical engravings. Ink. Surgical tools. Old game pieces. Pharmacy labels. Ordnance Survey maps. Glass vials. Foam core. Sandpaper.

Laughter and inspiration.

Cutting and pasting.

Facilitating the story.

The brocante girls have been busy indeed.

New assemblage pieces soon. 

Nightfall

Ship's porcelain and brass light switch. Recovered from a wreckage site off the Marshall Islands. 1943.

One Of Those Things

This is one of those things. A mystery of sorts. A puzzle. Found at Salmagundi years and years and years ago, with no explanation. 

"It's old."

Why yes, it is. 

Do you know the rest of the story?

Antique British Stoneware

Antique stoneware pots.Compact shapes and sizes, with fantastic lettering and graphics. 

Many were used for the storage and sale of foodstuffs:

• Searcy's Oriental Salt
• James Keiller & Son's Dundee Marmalade
• St. James's Relish
• Home-made Potted Meats
• Caviar
• Burgess's Genuine Anchovy Paste
• Carrick's Cumberland Dairy Pure Thick Cream

Others contained questionable supplements and remedies:

• Invalid Jelly (contains invalids? were they organic?)
• Numol Tonic and Nervine Body Builder
• Virol Bone Marrow: an ideal fat food for children and invalids

While still others belonged firmly on the pharmacy shelves:

• Vinolia Shaving Soap: for sensitive skins
• Areca Nut Tooth Paste
• Calvert's Carbolic Tooth Paste
• Decker's Sulphur Scurf Pomade: a non-greasy preparation for effectively removing dandruff and promoting the growth of the hair

Broken Heart

Cigar box. German bisque porcelain doll. Metal heart. Antique medicine vials. Vintage photo. Lichen nest. Plaster egg.

Be still my broken heart, for it is spring.

Be Still

Antique Potassium Bitartrate Squibb tin. Goose Egg. Hemp Cord. Zinc leaf from a French funereal wreath.

Be still.

 

Trophy Hunter

Wood smoothed by years and hands. Flecks and layers of paint. The colours of a still life. A seascape. The blush of spring. Bristles frayed and worn. Washed clean and smooth and soft.

There is no need for roses or diamonds. 

Step By Step

 

Foot paths lead out of the village in every direction. Many of them head up, up, up. Paint marks, small striped flags, dot the stone walls and outcroppings. Homes give way to empty buildings. Stone shells. Shells give way to ruins. Footprints all but forgotten. 

Step through the ruins. The path narrows, from a patchwork of pavement, to a bare track, scree loose underfoot. In no time, you are surrounded by silence. The village floats beneath you, the river a lazy green ribbon. Pass the mazets, with crumbling roofs. In amongst the ashes, shards of pottery. Rusty metal. The ever present snail shells. Limestone.

 

With every step, the dusty rattle of the laurel. Thyme underfoot. Wild iris. Delicate shoots on the olive trees, grey green and mottled. Occasionally a fig tree, with a last sweet offering. Survival. 

You are never alone. This route has been traveled for hundreds of years. Thousands of years. What if you did not turn back, but kept walking, step by step. Step by step.