What Fascinated You as a Child?
I was reading a book from the library the other day called Living the Creative Life – Ideas and Inspiration from working artists by Rice Freeman-Zachery and found the following mentioned exercise interesting and wanted to share.
List everything, no matter how silly it seems. Maybe you were entranced by a particular colour you found in your grandmother’s basket of embroidery silks, or the pattern and sheen of a found bird’s feather.
What captured every bit of your attention?
After making your list, circle or highlight the ones that cause a little sliver of interest. These are the ones that still call you.
I’d love to know what fascinated you as a child.
I’ll start the ball rolling.
~ Anni
Cats. I have always had them as pets; looked after them for people, had strays- Insects: ants, woodlice…the way they transform their shape and morph into little armoured beads when they are touched. Butterflies. Their patterns and coloured wings. Caught them in the garden and fed them with a pin and honey, let them go afterwards. Ants. Such busy things, I watched with amazement when they carried ant eggs and leaves. My father’s cigarette making ‘roll your own’ machine. I carefully unfurled the spent filter tips discarded at the back step. Pebble dashing on the outside walls of my Uncles pretty cottage in Kent. Each pebble was different in colour and texture. Flowers: Lupin pods and their seeds exploding on a hot summer’s day, perfume from the roses. My next-door neighbour’s cocktail cabinet. It was a magical thing with mirrors, lights, crystal all reflecting onto elegant glasses and bottles. Catalogues: Seed catalogues with pictures of beautiful flowers, mail order catalogues I used for cutting out and playing shops. All things small like dolls houses. Packs of balsa wood from the craft shop – making miniature furniture. I cut it with spent old razor blades of my dad’s and my brother’s Airfix glue. Patterns made by the frost on the inside of my bedroom windows, all fern like, just like lace. I traced them with my fingernails.Modelling sets with Plaster of Paris and small rubber moulds so small ornaments could be made and painted. Snowflakes, each one a magical thing and different. Watching live shiny eels at the fresh fish shop in the market. Japanese paper water flowers, seeing them grow in a jam jar of water. Lizards…the cats caught them in the long grass, rescuing them and making ‘homes’ for them in an old tin bath, their detail scales, forked tongues. The sound of the sea from a sea shell held to your ear. Fabric, the pile of soft cotton velvet and brocade, the luxury. The changing colour of silk taffeta. Seeds from trees, acorn cups, sycamore helicopter seeds that spiraled to the ground. Writing in the cold darkness of winter with sparklers on Bonfire Night. Collecting spent fireworks with my brother the nextday.Plasticine, so versatile…made minute things from imitation cookies and cakes to tiny rashers of bacon.
My mother’s sewing tin, an old Blue Bird Toffee tin full of odds and ends, assorted buttons, lace. Thimbles. Hooks and eyes, zips, press studs (domes), needles, safety pins, thread, and wool.
This is just a small sample in no particular order.
Comments
pegs, the swing set at the park, merry go round, balloons, bubbles, the wind :)
The butterflies…definitively!…also falling leaves that make me sad and always wanted to tie them with sewing back in trees. :)
Hi Zom, Thanks for sharing some of the things that fascinated you as a child. Those beautiful merry go rounds and the painted horses are memorable. Bubbles were such fun too ~ Anni :)
– Anni Morris
Thanks for reading this dorina :) Autumn does have a sadness but the colours are amazing. ~ Anni
– Anni Morris
Really love this Anni and the fabulous way you have written this , dreamy feel and sounds so real I can see everything you mention..
? you could put music to it and make it a song … Whiskers on kittens ………;-))))top of my list has to be at 4 years old watching an Uncle drawing little animals for me on a sheet of paper , thinking back actually he probably only had two or three to his repertoire LOL
looking at coloured pencils ,[,I ,wasn’t allowed to have any of my own …]
acorns used with matches poked in to make animals legs …
moss to make little fairy houses
native orchids which grew amongst the moss
[loved coloured plasticine but then disliked plasticine worked with cos it always turned a nasty grey]
doing[curling] peoples hair [yes, went on and did hairdressing]
riding my bike
making dolls clothes..
reading reading reading …………………
books books books …………………………
illustrations in books…
Hi Ginny, I’ve enjoyed reading your childhood fascinations. Books yesssss, we never do have enough bookcases do we? ~ Anni :)
– Anni Morris
A card drawn by a school friend using felt pens on porous paper, The colours were all very deep and the patterns made by them all joined to complete the whole page. I create work like that now. I don’t remember it entirely, just the idea and the colours. My dads nailclippers that seemed huge when I was small. Being a passenger in my parents car at night, I love being out at night looking at all the lights. Christmas decorations. Waking up on a campsite, the morning freshness and being away from routine. A teacher who was french, we called him Monsieur DuPont, because there was a song in the charts at the time of the same name. He took us out on a school trip and made us run for the bus. Cats, always had them and always will. My elder sister who took me to Biba for the first time and shared a room with me for a while. Marc Bolan. Anyone who didn’t fit a mould. A girl in primary school who apparently was sick, I don’t know the details, but she used to sit on the floor singing or playing guitar at the end of the day when all the parents came to collect us, very mysterious.. Fireworks Fireworks Fireworks, the smell the lights the sound. My sisters twin dolls, a boy and a girl, with freckles. Crazy foam- spray cans full of white foam with no particular purpose other than to dispense and throw around!!!! Wind and Rain. X
Wow Cathy! That’s a very interesting read indeed…love the stream of it cascading out. Yes Biba, they had a shop in Kensington London didn’t they? I loved their clothes. I remember buying the most beautiful coat from a store in Kensington…black woollen with pearl buttons that did up one side, looked like a cossack, with a skirt to it cut on the bias. Yup Marc Bolan…Ride a White Swan…fireworks night, hot chestnuts, baked potatoes. I think we have of the same. Thanks for sharing. You might enjoy some of the poetry written by Carol Ann Duffy. ~ Anni xox
– Anni Morris
Interesting idea thoughts that fascinated you as a child. First, I went and read through yours; just to see if we were in any way similar/or else, dissimilar; I certainly identified with much that you said. Only over here in England, we don’t have Lizards; well, not unless you buy they from the unusual pets shop; but, I too grew up with cats/kittens/-etc. I also read through your profile; I too grew up in London where I was born/bred/still live.
One of the things which fascinated me when young; was my aunt owned a huge gram; that played either the radio/or, else 45’s/LP’s. As a kid, I had no idea about how electricity worked; or, radio waves; so, I always thought that people were actually hiding somewhere inside of the gram; and, so that’s how all those voices came about. Then, one day, when the adults went off to work; I took a screwdriver to go take the gram apart in order to get to meet all of those people who were superstars on the radio. I took off the back of the gram; and, much to my surprise all I saw was a speaker; but, no people, yet?! So, I took off the speaker itself…and, still found no people?! Anyway, in the end, I decided to give up; and, just try putting back the gram together, again; sure enough, it never quite worked exactly the same. The speakers always sounded a bit shaky after that; but, of course, I could never admit exactly why; that remained my little secret forevermore. ;-)
Hi Paul, Enjoyed reading your words. As children we manage to keep that magic alive in us. I think it is important not to lose the child within us when we grow up too :) I still have that excitement when I sit down to paint and have all those beautiful colours around me. I did grow up near London and left when I was 20, then returned again a few years later (for 8 years) and lived in Hertfordshire. I have been in New Zealand for many years now, but still delight in thinking back to my childhood. Thanks for sharing ~ Anni
– Anni Morris