THAT INCURABLE SPARK

“Book collecting is an obsession, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, an absurdity, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those that do it, must do it.” Jeanette Winterson (b. 1959)

I have been fascinated with this quote by acclaimed British writer, Jeanette Winterson. It is an insightful and very accurate perspective of the psyche of a collector, not necessarily a book collector, but any collector who has that spark, a passion for what objects they surround their lives with to nourish the mind and spirit. For me, this quote could have started out by saying; “Pottery collecting”. Over time, making pottery and living with pots has become an obsession and this obsession does not necessarily bow to reason or logic, it is an incurable spark. The owning of pots is not for me the end all of the obsession, rather it is wanting those specific pots around to study, to learn from, to converse with and maintain a meaningful dialogue with. Living with pots is the important part, the ownership is secondary as no one can really own anything, at some point, it gets passed along. It is the time you spend with these objects and what they do to help you maintain a truer path in life that is important and each and every successive owner will learn their own lessons from each object they enter into the dialogue with.

Illustrated is a large, O-Tsubo by Karatsu veteran potter, Nakatsuka Takaya. Tell me, what is not to be obsessed with?