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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Bronwen, post: 2706471, member: 5833&quot;]Picture a 5 year old spending every recess time picking out the prettiest bits from the fine gravel in the kindergarten playground, who thought it was immeasurable treasure when an aunt &amp; uncle sent a collection of shells from their trip to Florida.&nbsp; When she was introduced to mythology, she immediately loved it.</p><p><br /></p><p>For a number of years I collected kaleidoscopes.&nbsp; The heyday of artisan-made kaleidoscopes passed &amp; really, how many can you spend time looking through?&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>When I went into my beading phase I suppose the stones &amp; pearls satisfied my magpie attraction to colorful, shiny things.&nbsp; When my bead shop brought in boxwood ojime, Chinese knockoffs of Japanese designs, I got captivated by those.&nbsp; If I could afford genuine netsuke &amp; ojime, and had the expertise to know genuine from fake, I would collect those.</p><p><br /></p><p>I can&#039;t even remember how I got into collecting Zuni &#039;fetishes&#039;, but I got in big time sometime after the bead shop closed &amp; my interest waned.&nbsp; Meanwhile, after seeing some very pretty jewellery that incorporated cameos, I started to see them in a new light, not just as grandmother wear, &amp; kept my eyes open for one to buy.&nbsp; I found one in an antique store that was going out of business, a shell Ceres.</p><p><br /></p><p>It wasn&#039;t until I signed up with eBay that I had the opportunity to browse thousands of cameos.&nbsp; Like most, my first acquisitions were of the pretty lady type in a modest price range.&nbsp; Once I broke out of those categories, I was hooked, intellectually as much as aesthetically.&nbsp; I wanted to learn how to recognize the mythological figures &amp; scenes, inevitably picking up religious &amp; allegorical ones along the way as well.&nbsp; I became interested in finding the sources of the images.</p><p><br /></p><p>That&#039;s the long story.&nbsp; The short one is that cameos combine my loves: rocks, stones &amp; other natural materials; mythology; small carved things; pretty things generally; old, unusual/unique things.&nbsp; They permit me to own little works of art signed by the author &amp; can add interest to my otherwise plain wardrobe (when I have any reason to get dressed).&nbsp; They have led to contacts around the globe, some of whom have become friends.&nbsp; Occasionally there is the great satisfaction of finding the underlying art for cameo subjects that are misidentified everywhere else.&nbsp; (The V&amp;A changed their description of a cameo based on information I provided.)&nbsp; They are satisfying on so many fronts - some even make me chuckle - how can I resist?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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