The Pulse Spotlight: Sarah Fishburn

Welcome to the third edition of The Pulse: an artist survey. This collaborative project aims to introduce you to new artists, help you get to know familiar faces even more, and allow you access into the creative hearts and minds of a very talented crew of individuals.

Today's question: Show and Tell. SHOW us one photograph of the object or objects that you collect and TELL us how your collection(s) came to be and/or what they mean to you. Feel free to include any anecdote about how you might have found/bought any of your treasures.

This Pulse Spotlight is brought to you by the creative, unique, soulful, and generally amazing Sarah Fishburn. As soon as you read this post...go to her sites and definitely order Pasticcio, her wondrous art zine she creates with Angela Cartwright.

http://sarahfishburn.com
http://lulu.com/cartwrightandfishburn
http://ragtagsf.blogspot.com

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Sometimes I think "Ahh, to live the life of a minimalist aesthete. . ." then I remember who I really am.

When I was a kid, we moved ALL the time, back and forth across the country, occasionally just across town.From kindergarten through 11th grade, I lived at maybe 20 different addresses. By the time I was 17, I was out on my own, with a scant dozen books and a deck of tarot cards the only remnants of childhood. For a while, I still didn't have much more than a black cat, a brown dog, a backpack full of books and the clothes on my back. I DID buy postcards at museums, whenever I had a few cents to my name, and propped them on the windowsill where they looked VERY arty next to velvet plants and wandering jews rooting in old Ball jars, or planted twining out of old tin cans. I was madly in love with someone who was deeply spiritual, a Capricorn, for whom material goods were of little value. To prove my commitment to his ideals, I smashed my pottery as fast as I made it, and buried my tarot cards in the backyard. What can I say? I was young and in love.

Soon I ended up with a different guy, a flute player, a Leo, more down to earth. We had a bunch of kids, and my true nature, that of a VISUAL JUNKIE, surfaced with a vengeance. I began squirreling away grocery money to buy gorgeous illustrated children's books, started making books for my babies myself, borrowing camerasto take their photographs, constructing funky frames to put those in, hanging beaded prisms in all the windows and doorways, and scooping up small folk art treasures, especially anything horse related (1954, a Year of the Horse) at every junk shop we came upon. I've had friends to trade with, and a couple of my own kids to contribute their evocative photographs and some graphic, eye-catching stencil art. From wherever I travel, I bring home pieces found or bought, and each time I see them, I remember the unadulterated, revelatory joy of discovering that particular place, at that particular time. I was a desert dweller from an early age, now living at the edge of the Rockies, yet crazy for everything beach. One of my most favorite collected bits is a small shell fossil found on the Oregon coast as the wind blew through my kids' hair and the surf pounded against the rocks. Someday maybe I'll travel further afield, to Canada, Scotland, India. . .

In this life I've been lucky to live where artists flourish, and been blessed with an appreciative eye. Our home is a rich pasticcio of colors, textures, sounds, smells - an ongoing and precious narrative of so many things - books, music, movies, photographs, fascinating art, spirited conversation, fresh baked bread, incense, flowers, laughter, tears. . .