Sometimes I see my mother’s tchotchkes and think how strange they are. Her walls and shelves and garden decor seem to lend themselves to birds and butterflies and frogs.

When I was little, each time I went to my paternal grandmother’s house she would let me take some small item home with me: a plastic rose, a tiny ceramic cat, or some strange gel-filled grapes.

My maternal grandmother’s house was filled with Catholic altars, rosaries, and paintings of sacred hearts. She and my grandfather lived on a small farm in Southern Saskatchewan and the things I brought home from their place were usually sticks, stones, leaves, and bugs I had collected on my walks to the slough. Over the years I also amassed a collection of braided palms from our Easter visits.

When our nieces visit our house they know exactly where the curio shelf is and ask to play with the TriGun cat, or the Ugly Doll, or the Vorpal Bunny, or the hand-knitted anatomically-correct heart. In my studio is a shelf of dried insects, snake skin in a vitrine, stones, shells, animal teeth, and a few horse bones.

We are all collectors.