When I packed for my trip home to attend my Dad’s funeral I included Joe Coomer’s book, Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God. I read the book several years back and liked it quite a lot. Coomer writes women who seem familiar, interesting, and some are even artists. It is a pleasure to read descriptions of artists whose creativity isn’t a form of mental illness.
While I was home, I helped pack up my Mom to move her to another state. Going through my parents’ things was an odd experience. I am too sentimental at times, attaching meaning to objects. This passage from Beachcombing rang true for me.
I’d walked into the hospital with dirty hands and knees, holding what I thought was a box of love and memory and hope, and walked out with the same box, a loose collection of yard-sale merchandise.
My Mom left her home of 62 years with four boxes and a few bags of clothes. I have been attempting to lessen my possession responsibility, but again being a mixed media artist it is difficult to give away potential art materials.
My favorite Joe Coomer books–
Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God
The Loop has finally become a film, A Bird of the Air. I can’t wait to see it.
An interview with Coomer can be read here.