Forgive me this moment of self indulgence, please, as I revel in these "new" antique gates with which I am totally enchanted, obsessed and thrilled. I much prefer to scavenge my funky old treasures myself, but these gates came to my garden today via a local antique shop, and before that via Monterey, California. As a result of their oceanside origins, they have the most wonderful salt-eroded patina that speaks to me of the beaches I grew up on which were forever being freshly strewn with new assortments of wood and metal in various stages of decaying beauty.
As a child, I imagined, with equal parts horror and thrill, that every piece of flotsam on the beach had come from a dramatic, tragic shipwreck somewhere out in the middle of the ocean. It helped that frequently the beach detritis included quarter- and third-portions of tide-thrashed boats. I couldn't help but wonder what had happened to the people, and what unthinkable story preceded the destruction and beaching of the boat's remains. Likewise, these gates -- well, really any object that bears the scars of a prior, unknown existence -- seem to invite imaginings and stories of however romantic a nature one is inclined.
Old gates have such character. Those are beautiful.
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