My first word was boat.
I grew up on the water, so the ocean has never really felt like somewhere I go..it has always just been part of my life. Some of my earliest memories are of beach fossicking, exploring, building teepees out of whatever I could find, learning how to rig fishing lines and helping clean the catch.
I was always curious about things and if I found something interesting on the beach, I wanted to know what it was, where it came from and why it was there. I'd take things home, look them up, ask questions and collect them. Looking back, I suppose I've never really stopped doing that!
I'm still drawn to old fishing lures, shells, shark teeth, weathered timber, handwritten logbooks, faded signs and all the strange little pieces of life you find around the coast. But it's not really the objects themselves that interest me. It's the stories attached to them. Who used that lure? Who stood on this beach before me? What happened here? What can this little piece of something tell me about the place it came from?
I've always been a maker. Drawing, painting, building, designing and making things has always been a big part of who I am. I ran my own creative business for years and spent a long time making things for a living....then life took me in a different direction and I became a teacher! There were lots of good things about that life, but somewhere along the way I lost touch with the creative part of myself. I was busy, I was responsible and I was doing what I thought I was supposed to be doing, but I wasn't really making anything anymore.
Then my dad faced a life-changing health event.
It wasn't the reason anyone would choose to change direction, but it made me stop and think about my own life. About the things I'd been putting off and the things I'd kept telling myself I'd get back to one day. I realised that somewhere along the way, I'd lost a little bit of myself too.
When I eventually stepped away from teaching, I didn't have some perfectly mapped out plan for what came next...I just knew deep down I needed to make things again. Once I started, I realised I hadn't really changed all that much. I was still that kid on the beach, collecting things, asking questions, researching the weird little objects I found and wanting to turn what I discovered into something I could keep.....That's when Daughter of the Drift was born.
It's a creative world built around the things that wash up, get carried along, get collected and become part of our stories. I make art, design logbooks, paint pennants, bags, signs and all sorts of little objects inspired by the places I've lived, the things I've found and the things that make me stop and look twice.
I also love curating things. Not everything I bring into Daughter of the Drift has to be something I've made myself, or even have a story I can trace back through history. Sometimes I simply come across something that makes me feel something and I want to share it with other people. A beautiful object, an old find, something useful, something a little strange. If it feels like it belongs here, it will be in the collection.
Everything is different, but it all comes from the same place. A love of the sea, a curiosity about the past and a fascination with the ordinary things that somehow manage to carry a story, or simply make you feel something. I don't think the most valuable things are always the rarest. Sometimes it's the shell you picked up on a particular holiday, the old lure from your dad's tackle box, the shark tooth you spent hours searching for, the faded sign you remember from a road trip or the scribble in an old logbook.
They're the little things that would be easy to forget if we didn't choose to hold onto them and that's what I want Daughter of the Drift to be about. Not just buying things, but keeping things. Keeping a memory, keeping a story, keeping a little piece of somewhere. Maybe even finding your way back to a little piece of yourself.
Because I've learnt that things disappear more easily than we think. Objects disappear, places change and memories fade. And sometimes, if we're not paying attention, parts of ourselves can drift away too. So I make things to hold onto. I find things worth sharing. I collect things that catch my eye. I create things that I hope will become part of someone else's story.
Things to hang on the wall, write in, carry with you, give to someone you love or keep tucked away for years. Little reminders of where you've been, what you've found and what matters to you.
For the things worth noticing. For the stories worth remembering. For the pieces worth keeping.
For the things that might otherwise drift away.
Ebb Harper x
Daughter of the Drift