Life
Long Learning
“You
are the laboratory
and
every day is an experiment.
Go
and find what is new
and
unexpected.” Joel Elkes
Yesterday,
I spent three hours at the Bama Flea Mall. I talked to a number of
folks as I was putting new material in my booth. I wonder whether
you've ever looked at vintage calendar covers. I had a box full,
compliments of my son, who is ever the supplier of 'stuff' for my
booth. As I priced, I thought about how life has changed. Most of our
calendars today are on smart phones, or if we have paper calendars,
they have nature photographs on the covers. Calendars of yesteryear
had incredibly beautiful art. I know you will remember Currier and
Ives and Norman Rockwell, but there were many others whose work was
not famous, but was fabulous, and who made that art specifically for
the humble calendar—one that would be thrown away at the end of the
year, and might even have advertizing on one side. Calendars were the
only exposure to art for some families, rural, and working-class, who
didn't live near museums. The covers—from the late eighteen
hundreds on—are collectors items now. While I was pricing, two
women, interior decorators, bought several of fully-rigged sailing
ships on white-capped seas.
I've
learned a lot of history working with old stuff. Did you know, for
instance, that tobacco used to come with cards in it, much like the
baseball trading cards came with bubblegum. Some of them are also
cleaver and quite beautiful—and collectible. Remember how we used
to cut out pictures from the Sears catalog and make play-houses and
wardrobes and such from them. Well, there are cut-outs of art from
the Victorian era, done with great precision and used, presumably, to
decorate other things. So much of what we buy 'ready-made' today
would only have been available as cut-outs then—like bulletin board
decorations, scrap-book art, stickers and such.
Though
I am not a collector of anything, I have discovered a quiet obsession
with hanging out at the Bama Flea. I meet other people with a passion
for the 'way things used to be' and learn from them. As usual, my
stereotypical notion of the kind of person I would come across there
was dead wrong. Most of them are curious and knowledgeable about the
history of things in their booths. In fact, I am the least informed
of the lot. I have learned to ask questions and listen to answers.
In
the spirit,
Jane
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