We love stuff. In spite of our declared aspirations to be clutter-free, eco-friendly, and economical, we surround ourselves with objects of function, entertainment, and occasional beauty. I have gone through many phases of object-worship, verging on being a pack rat and a collectoholic.
My favorite repository of stuff is the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), which boasts a collection of 4 million objects ranging from the Great Bed of Ware to 1950s Christmas cards to Mary Quant dresses to 17th coffee pots. The V&A changed my life when I was 16.
A school trip for the lower sixth (junior high?) took us to London to enhance our A-level studies in history, literature, and government. The V&A has a stunning collection of miniatures by the celebrated portraitist Nicholas Hilliard, and other 16th century painters, of Queen Elizabeth I and her contemporaries. This tied in nicely with our study of the Virgin Queen’s reign. And the miniatures live up to their promise—do visit if you get a chance.
After the miniatures, we got to wander freely for a while. I came across a small exhibition, part of the Boilerhouse project, curated by Stephen Bailey who went on to help found the Design Museum. Taste brought together a seemingly random group of objects to challenge the viewer’s personal taste, thereby raising the larger and obvious question of how and why taste develops.
Obvious now, but for me this was a total revelation. It turns out that I didn’t just like this stuff better than that stuff—I was in fact participating in a cultural dialogue about aesthetic values, shaped by class, economics and other forces. I nearly died of excitement as I carefully considered the Victorian earrings made of stuffed Kingfisher heads against the Vivienne Westwood platform shoes and some fluffy neon pink material. (Incidentally, Bailey seems to have revisited this idea anew in 2005 in the form of Beauty.)
It was a textbook museum experience. I was thrown into a new world that was philosophically bigger than me, and which gave me permission not just to appreciate fine art, but to value the designed object as well. I bought the poster as a symbol of my new-found knowledge—which induced a certain level of smugness, for I was now in the know.
I slowly built a desire to acquire objects—moving away from utilitarian needs to pure object desire. One of my first proud acquisitions cost £5.
This is an Empire teapot dated May 1957. It has a damaged spout, which would now put me off buying it, but I fell in love with the playful pink, the polka dots, and what I later identified as its mid-century modern lines. Incidentally, I found this milk jug dated December 1956 years later.
Now, of course, everyone is collecting the 20th century, but back in the 1980s it was a smaller club. Am I glad it has expanded? Yes, because I love seeing modern design everywhere from Target upwards and I believe good design improves people’s lives. No, because it was my special passion, shared with a small group, and it was much easier to pick up delicious collectibles for cheap. Is there such a thing as an elitist populist?
To be continued.
I’m perfectly content with your amassment of stuff, Stella, as long as you don’t collect junk or trash, and it doesn’t look like junk or trash. As long as you evaluate your stuff every time you move (or for those who don’t move as often as I do, every year during some kind of spring cleaning) and honestly decide that you don’t need that plastic necklace that you never wore and it’s never even joined the place where you keep your amassment of jewelry.
Keep it organized and keep it as simplified as possible. Man, I’ve got strict rules about stuff.
Or that tin that used to have chocolate in it but it grew stale, and you kept the tin because you though it was cool-looking, but you used the lid as a palate for your paint. It’s never been a good size to hold anything, and it’s got little chocolate crumblies encrusted to the inside… Yeah, I hope you throw that away eventually.
Of course, it’s all in your concept of what is treasure and what is junk.
this kind of collecting also requires a certain amount of leisure. i *want* to have time to rummage looking for that perfect 50s teapot — same thing with buying furniture and clothes — but somehow i never have the time to spend browsing and shopping.
I really enjoyed your meditation on “stuff,” the way it is designed–or not–and our relationship to it. I tend towards not being much of a pack-rat, myself, but the few things I do hang onto, I attach to fiercely. Especially if they are handmade or reflect careful design.
I had a similar experience at the Victoria and Albert museum. Each object had a story–about how it was made or designed–that spoke to the time, culture, and personal vision of the person who made or designed it. These stories fascinated me, and I think that’s why the objects do, too.
I look forward to the next part of your post.
My job security depends on people wanting stuff they don’t really need and then replacing it when the 840 page Vogue magazine tells them the color is out – from a housewares perspective – only to buy again 20 years later when it become cool again. I should be cynical and jaded, but when I open my own cupboard of plates and teapots and bowls and run my fingers over the glaze and hold it up to the light, I totally get it. I am a purveyor of stuff because I adore stuff and can reassure other people that they have permission to hoard stuff. I love images like the myna bird nest or dragon gold – the idea that we need objects to layer, pad, line our world and help define us or comfort us when the more abstract interpretations won’t do. I have a friend who prides herself on having only disposible items in her life – no attachments. And I think, why? If fate takes my stuff from me fine – I will deal. But until then – ooooooooo, pretty.