It was around 2010, give or take. I was living in a Montrose 4-plex in Houston, Texas. I think it was a Sunday morning. I opened the back door to start up a load of laundry, the used washer and dryer lived on the back porch. Sitting on the chair outside the door was a large box of … plastic eyeballs. I looked around. Nothing else seemed out of place, no people lingering. There was a card in the box which only said, “These made me think of you.” No signature. Okay. I get this. This has happened before.

Tangent: I was living in Boston and working on one of my creature sculptures. This one was a tooth fairy, which really looked nothing like a tooth fairy but more like a dragon made of metal and glass. I went shopping on ebay which was a newer thing then, what 20 plus years ago, I needed teeth, after all I was making a tooth fairy. I did a search for “human teeth”. The search came back with a few teeth at $2 each, which was way out of my price range. I needed a fair amount to make any visual statement on my sculpture and I was a struggling young artist. So I searched for “fake teeth”. Low and behold, I found a bundle of 100 unmatched fake teeth for $9.99. Perfect, well not really perfect, but it would do for the artist on a budget. The next day at work I got an email from my dear friend, Steven, he had something for me and needed to meet me that night after work. When I did he handed me a small satchel and explained that he saw this on ebay and knew he had to buy it for me. 100 unmatched fake teeth. So it happens, more than once.

Back to Eyeballs: There all sorts of eyeballs. All plastic eyes for dolls. Human eyes, animals eyes, colorful eyes, big white eyes. And I appreciate this. I don’t know who gave it to me, but they knew.

Tangent #2: It was kind of like when my brother-in-law gave me a small jar of pigs teeth the day after we meet for the first time. Apparently I made an impression on him at dinner and he knew I would like these treasures he had saved since his boy scout days. In fact, this week he sent me fossilized dinosaur bone found while cleaning out the garage to make jewelry with. So, it does happen, more than once.

Back again: The next week I was at a friendly BBQ gathering with a bunch of friends when a good friend’s new boyfriend came up to me and asked if I got his box of eyeballs. Oh, yes, of course! He owned a cleaning business and specialized in working with hoarders to help them detach from their beloved garbage. Apparently the eyeballs where from a client’s collection that he was allowed to remove. This made sense. Not sure how I felt about being his drop off point for client cast offs, but this was the only time he left me a gift. He and my friend soon broke up and that was it. I sorted through the eyeballs and decided to save only the fancy, glassy, animal eye ones, which stay in a jar on my shelf. The rest I donated to the Texas Art Asylum for others to enjoy.

FYI, I still take donations.