The Order of Things

by

We are collectors. As with every collector, the organisation of what we collect plays an important role. How do we organise the cosmos of our collection? Of course, collections always have an order. But this order is not necessarily clear, neither for the collector nor for the viewer of the collection.

Wir sind Sammler. Wie bei jedem Sammler spielt die Ordnung des Gesammelten eine wesentliche Rolle. Wie gliedern wir den Kosmos einer Sammlung? Wie ordnen wir unsere Sammlung? Sammlungen haben immer eine Ordnung. Aber diese Ordnung ist nicht unbedingt klar, weder für den Sammler noch für den Betrachter der Sammlung.

A collection of driftwood from a recent beach walk along the seashore.
Siri 😊 and Selma 😊 prefer another lay out.
Siri 😊 finds a photo in Dina’s huge collection of “Natural overlays and backgrounds”.
Selma 😊 feels inspired and looks for further overlays. Are we happy with the result? When do you stop?

We have clear organising principles for our flotsam and jetsam collection. Firstly, we sort by colour and shape. When it comes to colour, the classification is simple; we look for the opposites of light vs. dark or cold vs. warm colours. It’s different with shapes, because Poseidon and his companions, the Nerids, hate anything angular and rough. They grind everything round and smooth. You can see this in our driftwood collection. Dina and Selma 🙂 also collect plant material for the backgrounds and overlays of the photos.

Für unserer Strandgut-Sammlung haben wir klare Ordnungsprinzipien. Zunächst ordnen wir nach Farbe und Form. Bei der Farbe ist die Einteilung einfach, wir suchen nach den Gegensätzen hell vs. dunkel oder kalte vs. warme Farben. Bei den Formen verhält es sich anders, denn Poseidon und seine Gefährtinnen, die Neriden, hassen alles Eckige und Raue. Sie schleifen alles rund und glatt. Das seht ihr an unserer Treibholzsammlung. Außerdem sammeln Dina und Selma 🙂 Pflanzenmaterial für Hintergründe der Fotos.

You have probably already found a stone that is so beautifully smooth and evenly polished that you don’t want to put it down. It’s one of those special stones that you often take too many home with you and which end up in the flower bed or in the gravel on the driveway.

Sicher habt ihr schon einmal einen Stein gefunden, der so schön glatt und gleichmäßig geschliffen ist, dass ihr ihn gar nicht mehr aus der Hand legen wollt. Er gehört zu den besonderen Steinen, von denen man oft zu viele mit nach Hause nimmt und die dann im Blumenbeet oder im Kies der Einfahrt landen.

With driftwood, it is often the grain that catches our attention. As with layered rock, the sea abrades the wood in such a way that we recognise its inner structure, which we would not have noticed without Poseidon’s work.

Bei Treibholz ist es oft die Maserung, die unsere Aufmerksamkeit erregt. Wie beim Schichtgestein schleift das Meer das Holz so ab, dass wir seine innere Struktur erkennen, die wir ohne Poseidons Arbeit nicht bemerkt hätten.

A collection of shells from Holkham Beach.
Selma 😊 seems to be inspired by Turner. 🤔 Abstract or chaotic?
Siri’s 😊 version of a composed order.

The question is: how do we organise what we think is worthy of being displayed and photographed in our library? Siri 🙂 and 🙂 Selma love to arrange things in a way that creates tension. They arrange stones, driftwood and shells in a T-shape or in waves. Dina and Klausbernd tend to arrange things linearly in rows of similar things. Do we get tidier as we get older, we ask ourselves? Do we sacrifice the playful or the ingeniously chaotic in favour of aesthetics? But what is chaotic? “An unrecognised order” exclaim Siri 🙂 and 🙂 Selma.

Die Frage ist: Wie ordnen wir das, was wir für würdig halten, in unserer Bibliothek ausgestellt und fotografiert zu werden? Siri 🙂 und 🙂 Selma lieben es, die Dinge so anzuordnen, dass eine Spannung entsteht. Sie arrangieren Steine, Treibholz und Muscheln T-förmig oder wellenförmig. Dina und Klausbernd neigen dazu, die Dinge linear in Reihen von Ähnlichem anzuordnen. Wird man mit zunehmendem Alter ordentlicher, fragen wir uns? Opfert man zugunsten der Ästhetik das Spielerische oder das genial Chaotische? Aber was ist schon chaotisch? “Eine unerkannte Ordnung” rufen Siri 🙂 und 🙂 Selma wie aus einem Munde.

When Foucault wrote his brilliant book “The Order of Things” in the 1960s, he was concerned with priorities and power. Almost 60 years later, we are all about fun and games. Today, we think too much profundity is neurosis and happily organise things according to our mood.

Als Foucault in den 60iger Jahren sein geniales Buch “Die Ordnung der Dinge” schrieb, ging es ihm um Prioritäten und Macht. Uns geht es fast 60 Jahre später um Spiel und Spaß. Heute halten wir zu viel Tiefsinn für Neurose und ordnen fröhlich nach Lust und Laune.

Happy collecting, frohes Sammeln

The Fab Four of Cley
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

.

© text and illustrations, Hanne Siebers & Klausbernd Vollmar, Cley next the Sea 2024


110 thoughts

    • Thank you very much, dear Derrick.
      Dina had a chair in her home in Norway which was made of driftwood and was very comfortable. Unfortunately it’s too big to bring it over to England easily.
      We hope you are well and wishing you a happy weekend
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

  2. This post profoundly touched my inner child. Beautiful creations! What our imagination can do if we but allow it out to play always and I mean always leaves me stunned. This is where genius lies, in the play of a child creating from imagination. Thank you so much for sharing this!! Fantastic post! xo

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Dear Amy,
      thank you so much for your kind words 🙏 🙏
      Indeed, we love to play with our finds and try this and that arrangement. It’s fun and Siri 🙂 and 🙂 Selma can’t stop it quite often.
      With love from the sea
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

    • Yes, it is, dear Margaret.
      For this blogpost we tried out many possibilities. Actually, there are nearly endless ways we could arrange our finds. We all four could agree with these arrangements we show here.
      Thanks for commenting.
      Wishing you a wonderful weekend
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  4. My dear friends,
    I love the transformation of your collections! What a brilliant idea to blend in some images from a similar photographic collection. Do you keep all the driftwood later? Lots of artists in Sweden use driftwood for various projects.
    Looking at my desk right now, some might call it an unrecognised order. 😉 I see it as a creative process as I’m preparing my next lectures. 🙂 All the papers, books and magazines find their way back to the shelves and drawers as soon as I’m finished. I strongly favour a clear desk policy and support the old saying that a tidy desk equals a tidy mind. Having a tidy desk stops my mind from being distracted by clutter and allows me to focus better.
    I collect books in order of themes like you would find them in a library. The order of the books is visible and clear and I love having so many bookshelves displaying my collections in my home.
    Have a good weekend, FabFour.
    Kram
    Annalena x

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Dear Annalena,
      I need an organised writing desk to be able to be creative. The basis has to be organised to give me the freedom to play around with ideas.
      Our library is highly organised following the Dewey Classification System. If one wants to work with her or his collections one needs a system to find a special item without much hassle. Maybe creativity is the balance between order and just playing around with possibilities. One without the other is either conventional or chaotic.
      As you know, our biggest collection is that of books. With our book we learn that if a collection reaches a certain size the question is not so much what to collect but what to sort out. Of course, a lot of driftwood, stones and shells end up in our garden or even in the bin.
      With lots of love from the just sunny sea
      KRAM 🤗
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Like

    • Thanks, dear Fraggle.
      We thought a lot about how to present our findings in an interesting way. Great, that you like it.
      Wishing you a happy weekend
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  7. Sehr schöne Anregung. Bei den letzten beiden Bildern habe ich das Gefühl auf den Meeresgrund zu schauen, die Muscheln durch das Wasser im Sand liegen zu sehen, das mag ich!
    Frau Montessori hatte auch den Sinn für Ordnung im Blick, wenn ich mich an den Pädagogikunterricht in meiner Ausbildung erinnere. Da gab es wunderschöne Farbtäfelchen, die man nach Farbtönen anordnen konnte. Daran denke ich immer, wenn ich einen meiner Buntstiftkästen öffne. Die dürfen nicht durcheinander geraten. 😉

    Liebe Grüße,
    Syntaxia

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Liebe Syntaxia,
      das kenne ich gut. Als ich mein drittes Farbbuch schrieb, das Malbuch für Erwachsene, das in die Farbenlehre einführt, bekam ich u.a. einen Kasten mit 360 Farbstiften gesponsert. Ich liebe es, die immer wieder zu ordnen und bin verblüfft, wie viele sinnvolle Ordnungssysteme möglich sind. Und wenn sie fein geordnet sind, sehen sie nicht nur anmutig aus, sondern ich finde auch schnell die gesuchten Farben. Das entspricht auch der Bauhausidee, Ästhetik und Funktionalität hängen eng zusammen.
      Die Muscheln sollen auch wirken, dass sie auf dem Meeresboden liegen. Das war Selmas 🙂 Idee.
      Habe herzlichen Dank für deinen Kommentar
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Like

    • Hi David
      Thanks a lot. Our two fairies can see things from above when flying. Their eyes are nearly as good as eagle eyes.
      All the best
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

    • Hi Val,
      we like to organise following a certain system that we can find and use the organised items again.
      Organising by mood is fine if using the organised elements only once or if the collection is small. But thinking of our collection of 15.000 books we can’t go by the mood. But nevertheless, Dina organised her library of some thousand books by colour.
      We organise our shells, stones etc. in glass jars so that we can use them again following our mood.
      Thanks for your comment
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

    • Thanks a lot Steve.
      “Driftwoopd Alphabet” – we love this idea. It’s a kind of runic, isn’t it?
      Thanks & cheers
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Like

  13. Ja, das Sammeln und Ordnen ist fester Bestandteil meiner Atelierarbeit. Schön, dass du mich daran erinnert hast, das Handlungen, die man als normal empfindet tatsächlich etwas Besonderes und wertvolles sind.
    Liebe Grüße
    Jürgen

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Lieber Jürgen,
      ich bin nicht nur Strandgutsammler sondern auch der Bibliothekar unserer Hausbibliothek. Bei beiden kommt ständig etwas Neues hinzu und Altes muss schon aus Platzgründen aussortiert werden. Insgesamt finde ich die Ordnung der Dinge ein interessantes Thema, das sehr vom Zeitgeist abhängig ist. War noch bis vor ein paar Jahren der Minimalismus in – dem wir immer noch anhängen – , so kritisieren viele das heute als Neo-Puritanismus. Sie würden Vieles behalten, was bei uns in die Tonne kommt oder gespendet wird.
      Habe Dank fürs Kommentieren.
      Mit lieben Grüßen vom sonnigen Meer
      Klausbernd
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  17. Thank you for sharing your precious collections with us! I felt privileged to view them through your photos. Your organising principles for our flotsam and jetsam collection are fascinating, so beautifully done.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Dear Amy,
      thank you very much for your kind comment.
      We tried a lot with different layouts and combinations before we published this post.
      We wish you a relaxing weekend
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  19. A lovely collection, really nice pieces there, I can understand that you need to collect it. I also agree that collections need to be sorted. You made that beautiful and taking wonderful pictures of it too. a joy to look at.
    Enjoy more collecting at your next walk.
    Much love from Ute xx

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Dear Ute,
      thanks a lot. Now we always plan our tours for beaches we can collect what ever we’ll find there. At every beach we find something different that is specific for this beach. This beachcombing makes walking at beaches interesting, especially for Siri 🙂 and 🙂 Selma who otherwise find it boring walking at the beaches.
      Here the sun is shining. We wish you a sunny weekend as well
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  20. Fab Four of Cley,
    What talent the 4 of you have! I remember the post “Beachcombing”; combined with this and your books, I agree. You are a family of collectors and inventive in how you display them!
    I hope you all enjoy your weekend.
    Take care of yourselves.
    GP

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Thank you very much, our dear friend GP.
      We love to surround us with beautiful things. Well, there are always little discussions how to organise our book collection. For Dina it’s important that the books look nice in the shelves, for Klausbernd it’s important to follow a system that we find a specific book immediately. The challenge is to combine aesthetics and function. It’s much easier with shells, stones and driftwood. Their function is to look beautiful or at least interesting.
      Here the sun is shining and we wish you a happy and sunny weekend as well
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  21. Your collections are beautiful! And the photos are as well. I also love collecting. And have a room in my very small house dedicated to all sorts of things. Needless to say, I have many shell collections. 😉

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Of course, as a mermaid you have a shell collection. Do you present them in glass jars like we do?
      Dina has transferred our library into a natural history museum. On the broad window sills and in the shelves in front of the books she put her collection of seal and bird bones and Klausbernd’s fossil collection is presented there as well. That gives this room a very special atmosphere we very much like.
      How do you show your collections?
      Wishing you a wonderful weekend
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

    • Some of the shells are in glass jars of different sizes, some are in baskets and some are displayed on shelves. I also have a wicker stand with four shelves that has shell arrangements and some other items. I like living in a museum. 🙂 Have a great weekend!

      Liked by 1 person

  23. I don’t think creatives ever stop creating. When they do they die…..or become un-creatives.

    I love the overlays. No matter how one arranges their collections, it is usually individual and makes the creator feel at home in their space – mentally or physically. It has to be a visual expression of their creativity.

    I’m a great believer in Feng Shui. When I enter my apartment, my eye automatically is drawn to each individual placement of furniture, pictures or ornaments as it winds its way around the room. If I’m dusting the furniture or ornaments, everything has to go back in its place to create harmony and calm. Not an inch to one side or the other. In its place. Just right. Same with colours and shapes.

    (Yes, I am a bit OCD).

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Dear Vicki
      you mention cleaning your collection. Well, that’s quite a job. First of all we have to clean every find before it’s brought in and later we have to clean them regularly when displayed. We change the display after cleaning the items, we try out something new. For us it has to create a calm and at the same time inspiring atmosphere. We are lucky that we have more or less the same taste.
      Wishing you all the best, happy collecting
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

    • Dear John,
      the danger of every collection is ending up with a too large amount of items. Therefore once in a while we reduce our collections drastically and make space for new stuff. We change the display as well (otherwise it gets boring). We love to play around with our collection and try to avoid that collecting defines us and takes over.
      Thanks for commenting.
      A happy weekend wishing you
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 4 people

  26. Lieber Klausbernd.
    Den Sammlertrieb hatte ich schon als Kind, aber Ordnung und ordnen musste ich Schritt für Schritt lernen. Du kennst ja meine alte Sandsammlung. Da hatte ich gleich zu Beginn einen Bauingenieur in Deutschland kennen gelernt, der für seine Sandsammlung ein Ordnungssystem erstellt hat. Er sagte mir, die Sammlung hat dann seine Ordnung, wenn ich auf das, oder eines der gesammelten Dinge zeige, wie schnell kannst du mir die Angaben von Beschreibung und Fundort sagen.
    Natürlich nach Form und Ästhetik zu ordnen ist eher eine Form der „Kunst“. Damit ordne ich euch als Sammelkünstler ein…haha…
    Beste Grüße
    Ernestus

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Lieber Ernestus,
      danke für deinen Kommentar.
      Wir lieben es, als Sammelkünstler bezeichnet zu werden. So sehen wir uns auch selbst, zumindest was das Strandgut betrifft. Bei den Büchern sind wir eher cool und sammeln und ordnen nach praktischen Prinzipien. Wir sammeln nur noch, was wir lesen werden oder zum Nachschlagen meinen zu benötigen und ordnen derart, dass wir ein bestimmtes Buch möglichst sofort finden.
      Früher war Klausbernds Bibliothek anders aufgebaut. Alle Bücher, die er für das Schreiben eines Buches benötigte, stellte er zusammen. So änderte sich die Ordnung seiner Bibliothek mit jedem neuen Buch, das er schrieb. Das erwies sich auf die Dauer als zu unpraktisch.
      Haben wir dir bereits geschrieben, dass wir auch ein Glas mit schwarzem Sand von Jan Mayen in unserer Bibliothek bei den arktischen Büchern stehen haben?
      Mit lieben Grüßen nach Wien
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

    • Thank you, dear Jennie,
      we see our collection of jetsam and flotsam as art, at least the way how we present it. We spend quite some time trying out different layouts. And then photographing it is the next step. Dina loves it to produce an arty pictures of our collections.
      Wishing you a wonderful weekend
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

    • Thank you soooo much, dear Martina. These pictures are our collective artefacts. We collect together and then we all four try out what is the most beautiful or interesting way to present our finds. Dina photographs them then in her creative way. Discussing the different photographs is fun. In the end Klausbernd has to produce an interesting text with the help of the other three of us four explaining what’s it all about.
      Wishing you a relaxing weekend
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

  29. What fun. There is a beach in California’s Redwood National Park that fills up with incredible small driftwood made from redwood that all of you would delight in, regardless of how you organized it. We will be there this summer on our three month trip up the Northwest coast of northern California, Oregon, and Washington. I’ll try to do a blog on it.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  30. “Almost 60 years later, we are all about fun and games. Today, we think too much profundity is neurosis and happily organise things according to our mood.” I have kept this profound quote to think about in the coming days. Every time I stop by your place, my imagination is ignited with possibilities. Dina – your photography is compelling. Selma and Siri – love your positioning. Klausbernd – your book collection is truly remarkable.

    For me, collecting things is the preservation of memories and history, allowing me to hold onto moments and learn about the past. You have confirmed beautifully, in this post, that collecting can be a way to express creativity and individuality.

    Sending many hugs and love to our dear friends, The Fab Four of Cley!!!

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Good morning, our dear friend Rebecca,
      we agree, collecting is preservation of things and memories. And when I think about the fossils in our collection they are materialised memories of millions of years back. But the shells are very young, babies so to speak. Nevertheless we remember most of the situations and places where we found them. Seeing it like this, our collection is like a diary.
      Thanks for inspiring us to see this aspect of our collection. You always inspire us – GREAT!
      Wishing you a wonderful March. With lots of love ❤
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

    • It was Dina who suggested a quote by Susan Sontag, in one of your posts. This quote stayed with me from that moment: “all photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability.”

      Liked by 2 people

    • Dear Rebecca

      Indeed, photographs are always documents of the past. What’s photographed is gone when we watch the picture.

      Love from sunny Norfolk where I mowed our lawn today – after successfully repairing the lawnmower
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

  31. Lieber Klausbernd und Fab Fours,
    Eure Fundstücke sind so schön. Die Sammlungen des Treibgutes und der Muscheln stellt Ihr so und anders dar. Hier geordnet und da hintergründig.
    Danke für die Erinnerung an Foucaults “Ordnung der Dinge”. Dazu las ich damals ergänzend Jean Baudrillard, “Das System der Dinge. Über unser Verhältnis zu den alltäglichen Gegenständen”. Da gibt es auch ein feines Kapitel über das Sammeln.
    Zu Chaos und Ordnung lässt sich in wechselseitiger Dialektik trefflich diskutieren und philosophieren …
    Gute Wünsche und herzliche Grüße
    Euer Bernd

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Lieber Bernd,
      ich las damals Baudrillard über das System der Dinge auch. Allerdings erinnere ich mich nur noch daran, dass ein freud- wie einsichtsvolles Lesen war. Ich habe nur zwei Werke von B. in meiner Bibliothek, jedoch “Das System der Dinge” leider nicht mehr. Da muss ich unbedingt wieder ‘reinschauen. Danke für den Hinweis.
      Bleibe gesund und munter
      Klausbernd 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

    • Freut mich, lieber Klausbernd.
      Die Lektüre habe ich ebenfalls als anregend und einsichtsvoll in Erinnerung.
      Im Kapitel “Strukturen der Stimmung” gibt es einen Abschnitt: “Stimmungswert Farbe”.
      Falls Du den Titel in Deinen Bezugsquellen nicht findest und doch unbedingt wieder reinschauen musst, könnte ich Dir das Buch schicken.
      Hier die Ausgabe Campus Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1991. Erstmals deutsch: “Das Ding und das Ich. Gespräch mit der täglichen Umwelt”, Europa Verlag Wien 1974
      (“Le système des objects”, Gallimard Paris 1968)
      Grüß mir das Meer
      Bernd

      Liked by 1 person

    • Lieber Bernd,
      der Baudrillard ist hier leichter zu bekommen, als ich dachte. Habe herzlichen Dank für dein Angebot. Es ist erstaunlich in welchem Maße er damals bereits die Waren- und Mediengesellschaft kritisierte. Es ist auch interessant für mein Farbbuch, an dem ich gerade schreibe. Ich sehe das unter dem Aspekt ‘Farbe und Image’. Ich bemerke bei mir selber, wie ich mit meiner Umgebung in zarten Grautönen, dem Image des etablierten Intellektuellen entspreche (oh dear).
      Noch einmal ganz herzlichen Dank, mich noch einmal auf die Strukturalisten gebracht zu haben, die, wie ich mit Erstaunen feststelle, mein Denken bis heute geprägt haben.
      Mit lieben Grüßen vom Meer
      Klausbernd 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

    • Dear David,
      collecting soda bottles and signs you need a lot of space to present your collection, don’t you? How did you get the idea to collect soda bottles? We find that unusual and great.
      Thanks and cheers
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Like

  34. Weather organized, orderly, or randomly displayed, it’s the process of collecting and displaying that’s important to the organizer/displayer. Collections often have far more meaning to the collector than the beholder, and that’s what’s really important. Thanks for sharing yours.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Dear Brad,
      to find different ways to order the collected items is for us as much fun as the collecting itself. The order of items gives the collection a meaning.
      And, of course, how we organise our collection says a lot about us. We are well aware of it.
      Thanks and all the best
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Like

  35. Well Fab Four, I love what you’ve done with the collection(s) which are lovely on their own but even more so with your additions of textures and backgrounds. Living at the beach I too enjoy the fascinating creations that come from the sea. One can see the artistry behind every one of them. For the most part I leave them in place with the exception of a few truly unique and IMHO spectacular finds. After a storm we especially see unique shapes and sizes. Thanks for sharing your approach to enjoying these marvelous finds.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Dear Tina,
      it’s here the same, after big storms and high tides we find the most amazing items.
      We follow our feelings what we collect and what we feel it’s special. Of course, that has to do with our thinking and judgements which subconsciously determines what we find worth collecting. But in the process of collecting we are not aware of it, it’s just fun. Whereas in the process of presenting our finds we are very much aware of it – and that is fun as well.
      Thanks for commenting
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

    • Liebe Susanne,
      als ich Student war, war die Ordnung der Dinge, ein Lieblingsthema der französischen Strukturalisten, das Diskussionsthema. Ich finde das immer noch ein spannendes Thema z.B. wie Ordnung und Machtstrukturen zusammenhängen oder wie sich Ideologie heute meist erfolgreich hinter Ordnung versteckt. Mich hat verblüfft, worauf mich wieder Arnoldnuremberg (weiter oben) aufmerksam machte, wie aktuell noch Baudrillard und auch Foucault sind. Spannend fand ich auch ein neueres Buch von Umberto Eco über Listen.
      Als Büchersammler ist man ständig mit dem Thema Ordnung konfrontiert. Klar, es gibt das Dewey System, aber ich benötige auch meine individuellen Abweichungen. Eine sinnvolle Ordnung sollte Funktionalität und nachvollziehbare Kriterien verbinden, die Raum fürs Individuelle aufweisen sollten.
      Huch, dazu wäre viel zu sagen (und ist auch gesagt und geschrieben worden). Viel Erfolg mit deiner Diss.
      Mit lieben Grüßen
      Klausbernd 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

    • Lieber Klausbernd,
      ja, als Sammler inhaliert man die Ordnung mit der Atemluft. Das neue Buch von Eco besitze ich auch. Ich habe mich jedoch von vielen meiner Bücher getrennt. Meine Verlegerin bekam die Fachbücher für ihre Sammlung und die Belletristik ging in ein Büchercafé. Meine Bücherregale sind immer noch bis oben hin voll, nur strukturierter und thematischer. So finde ich auch die mir wirklich wichtigen Bücher viel schneller.
      Liebe Grüße von Susanne

      Liked by 1 person

    • Liebe Susanne,

      wie die Ordnung ist auch das Aussortieren das tägliche Brot von Sammlern. Bei uns ist hauptsächlich Hanne-Dina die große Aussortiererin.

      Liebe Grüße vom heute grauen Meer
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

    • Dear Terry

      well, life is easier and we think art is more beautiful with a certain order.
      Thanks for commenting.

      Keep well
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Like

    • Dear Jane

      thank you so much for kind words. We love to beachcomb and afterwards to arrange our finds, playing around with them and find an arrangement we all four like. Dina photographs our layouts in the end.

      Keep well
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

  42. What a beautiful post. I love the discussion of order and the conclusion that chaos is unrecognized order. So it is with such stunning creativity. The overlays are gorgeous. Thanks for sharing your collections, your thoughts, and your art.

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    • Thank you very much, dear Diana.
      You made us happy and smile by liking our post. We were a bit hesitant in the beginning of posting two similar posts one after the other. But it worked.
      Wishing you a wonderful rest of this week
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  43. These are wonderful, especially the shells. Thank you for inviting us to see the results of your beach walks and that perennial urge to order and display collections. What you said about that smooth stone that ends up outside because you have so many rings true! :-) Do you know the work of Herman de Vries? It’s not as playful but seeing how far someone can take the urge to collect and order things is interesting.

    One of my favorite collections is a group of similar shell fragments – the broken-off, smoothed hinges of bivalves that look like wings – you may have seen these at the beach. I found a shallow wooden box many years ago and glued them onto it. It hangs on the wall and I’m still happy to look at it! You reminded me that another collection – old pottery fragments we found on a deserted sandy beach in New York Harbor – is sitting locked away in a plastic box. I really should do something with it! Have a wonderful weekend –

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    • Good afternoon, dear Lynn,

      thank you for making us aware of the collections of Herman de Vries. We especially like his pictures of vegetation.
      With all collections there is always the question when to stop or reduce the collection to make room for new items. Hanne-Dina is just sorting out our collection of nature books because we got so many new ones we want to keep.

      You mention similarity. We suppose all collections are about similarities, at least they make collections interesting. Collecting is an exercise in seeing similarities. Of course, Selma 🙂 – a collector of everything – always says cheekily the first similarity of every collection is that the items are in this collection.

      To prepare a collection for displaying is even more fun than the collection itself – for us.

      We wish you lots of fun with your collections
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

    • Go Selma! ;-) I like a humorous mind that apprecaites getting back to basics.

      I’m looking at a small collection of 3 pieces of driftwood with holes, like the one in the lower right corner of the first display, and realizing that I arranged them on the windowsill…demonstrating the truth of what you said about the fun of preparing or displaying a collection. Finding relationships among things is delightful work/play. Good luck with your nature book thinning and I’m glad you enjoyed some of de Vries’ work. Happy weekend to you –

      Liked by 2 people

  44. Your collections shine through with the love of the sea and the love of life. Yes, I never would have thought that collections have an order, I collect and admire what I love, and for me, it’s perfect in the mess I lay out. However, those I am with will often find something else I do not see worthwhile for my collection… and now I get it: “this order is not necessarily clear, neither for the collector nor for the viewer of the collection.” Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I suppose the key is finding things worth beholding :-) Your collection and layout is simply beautiful, but do side with Siri and Selma on their creative layouts :-) And I love that you give a prop to Poseidon, who without we’d only see sharp angular wood and glass instead of the perfection of the flotsam. 

    Your last thought has me thinking: do we get tidier as we get older? More rigid in our ways? Yes, just because it is human nature – but this is also good because if we understand this about ourselves, it becomes easier to embrace the playful youth of our past and run with it, with whatever mood we feel leading the way. This is the magic you four have together, always keeping each other young and fun :-) Beautiful photography of the art you have collected via the courtesy of Poseidon and the beautiful tides of nature. Wish you a wonderful week ahead!

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  45. Your collection is like a diary, yes. So beautifully organized in every possible mode and making memories live. Whenever I visit a beach, I collect something…I used to build glassed – in landscapes, seascapes and fantasy places with my finds. Not any more though. I think I envy you the closeness to the sea…and the collecting together with Siri and Selma. Just like you said, it takes away stress, and gives you the opportunity to be totally absorbed and forget this troubled world. Thank you for leading us along this beautiful road.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Dear Ann-Christine

      Sorry, that we didn’t answer before. We just published a post about collecting and found your comment.

      On the beach, there is too much one could collect, isn’t it?

      Our new post is about what we collect right now – oh dear, we are collectors.

      With warm warm greetings from the sea
      The Fab Four of Cley
      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

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