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As a child, I was often told that every boy should have a collection. Somehow, I never became too excited about collecting stamps, baseball cards, coins, the usual offerings, leaving me at times feeling that I was not quite with it, but somehow I got by. Years later, under the spell of the art of assemblage and collage, I fell into the habit of picking up bits of debris from the side of the road. Mostly scraps of paper and odd pieces of metal, things that fit into a certain aesthetic that was not at all unique, but every one operating in this mode had their own small stamp of personality. One day, I spotted and picked up an intriguing bit of metal, whose source and identity were a complete mystery to me. Bebore I knew it, these unidentified objects seemed to be always before my eyes, like coins in a dream of finding money. A short walk could easily yield up to a dozen. Intrigued, I began to collect them in earnest. I fashioned a collecting tool out of an old leather case from a folding sheet music stand, fitted it with a scrap of metal pipe, stenciled the word "COLLECTION" on it and I was in business. Aimless strolls suddenly became a kind of anonymous, unannounced performance art. The street becomes a studio, the junk of urban life the artist's materials, the case and collection elements of an installation piece, adaptable to any gallery or studio space: simply scatter the collection on the floor and suspend the case from the ceiling in the centre of the room.