A collection of antique fishing lures were hooked into becoming the embellishment to the next button robe designed and created by Clarissa Rizal
I’ve been collecting antique fishing lures from garage sales, antique and 2nd hand stores since 1999. While fishing with my father off shore at Outer Point back in the early 90’s, I had this notion that I would create a button blanket to honor my two older brothers and my father who were all commercial fishermen and also to just honor fish in general, especially salmon! Well 16 years later, my oldest brother and my father are now gone, and the other brother no longer fishes for a living because even that profession has nearly gone by the wayside too.
The salmon are disappearing; when our mother said that years ago, I didn’t want to believe her. Yet, we who are older than 50 have seen it with our own eyes. And the waters are so contaminated, that I will eat salmon maybe once a year because even though I crave our fish, I don’t trust what salmon are carrying.
I plan on creating a series of salmon button robes to mourn the loss of our salmon, however also to inspire faith our salmon will one day return in great numbers — maybe not in our lifetime, but possibly in our grand-children’s lifetime. If you, dear reader, come across antique fishing lures like those above, bring them to my attention so I can fetch them OR better yet, send them my way to my Alaska address or Colorado address – either way they will get to me! Thank you!