This week in my father's journal, Ken explores the idea of "collecting," (which I certainly inherited; as did my son), what it means, and the role it plays in all our lives.
"The Tug Of the Past"
By Ken Muir
The future is unknowable. The present is messy, tense, tangled,
often frustrating. But the past is a different animal…….or so it
appears. It seems to be knowable, simpler, capable of being
modeled into something useful in our lives.
I have bought into this notion. Perhaps, being a former history
teacher, I above all should know that this idea is overly simp-
listic, that the past is never so lucid, so understandable as our
nostalgia and desire for clarity make it seem. But the quest for
knowing about the past and integrating elements of its art and
artifacts into my life has ensnared me.
The chase for American art pottery and prints, my fascination
with Marie Simonds’ barn and its contents, managing the sale of
contents at Catherine Nelson’s home, the quest to secure objects
that my parents had collected over decades……..all of these
coupled with attendance at countless estate and moving sales
evince a strong passion for assembling the best exemplars of
America’s material past that we could find and afford.
This passion for “collecting the old” was never stronger than
when I stumbled into a “time capsule” sale. Most
often these were homes where a couple had set up housekeeping
just before or just after World War II. And, in order to be a true
“time capsule,” the owners had not significantly updated or
remodeled the home. Kitchens and basements were the prime
hunting grounds, with attics and garages coming next. Tools,
art prints, kitchen ware, glassware and bric-a-brac, art pottery,
furniture, military uniforms and equipment, toys, vintage books,
ephemera……..the range of desirable finds was almost endless.
Bloomfield, Nutley, Clifton, Lyndhurst, Garfield, Prospect Park,
Rutherford, East Paterson….the whole string of semi-industrial
towns along the Passaic River comprised the rich vein of older
communities to be mined. Their workshops and small factories
had helped measurably in the war effort, deploying American
technical knowhow and also sustaining the surrounding resident-
ial neighborhoods. Marie Simonds’ barn, with its wartime wood-
working enterprise, was a classic example of this aspect of
American mid-century life. Wooden U S Army Signal Corps boxes
were produced there in considerable quantity.
The description of “finds” at these sales and the behavior of other
patrons -especially dealers- could fill many hours.
So, why does this accumulation of the material past grip me so?
Some say that people set out to “collect their youth….” finding
again the items that amused them and peopled their world when
they were children. This was not true in my case, for our family
lived in such a spartan manner that few of these amenities were
around, and even such items as we had in these categories were
almost entirely for daily use, not for aesthetics. The single ex-
Caption ion to this pattern was my father’s growing collection of
clocks.
Some might say that collecting antiques was a good investment,
and perhaps for some it was. But the Great Recession of 2008 put
the lie to that notion pretty much, as prices of antiques and
“vintage” items of all sorts plunged and stayed depressed.
So I am left merely with the oft-repeated maxim of dealers and
collectors, “buy what you like… that way, you can’t go wrong.”
And I guess that’s what it finally comes down to……I like these
objects.
They come from an America that I can relate to, that I
know reasonably well, that I can be proud of in many respects.
They display a realism -- to life, to Nature -- that I appreciate and
can relate to. I respect the workmanship they embody…….they
are a form of “eye candy” that I value. At some level they make
me feel good, fulfilled.
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