On Collecting Materials

Every maker I know collects materials beyond what they immediately need. The leather worker who keeps a drawer of offcuts. The woodworker whose basement holds boards bought ten years ago, waiting for the right project. The ceramicist's shelves of found glazing materials — ash, iron-bearing earth, feldspar from a particular quarry.

This collecting is not hoarding, though it can look similar from the outside. It is a form of preparedness — but preparedness of a particular kind, aimed not at survival but at creative possibility.