A few of my favorite things
By: Suelain Moy
Great collectors have always been famous throughout history. In fact, both John Lennon and Freddie Mercury collected stamps as kids, and stamps helped Amelia Earhart finance her transatlantic flights. (See Lennon’s childhood stamp album at theNational Postal Museum). In 1877, Thomas Edison made his first sound recordings on sheets of tinfoil. You can still hear the strains of the music and melodies he collected in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
Even the eccentric tycoon J. Paul Getty could not resist the allure of collecting. In 1965, he wrote of “the romance and zest—the excitement, suspense, thrills, and triumphs—that make art collecting one of the most exhilarating and satisfying of all human endeavors.”
As an adult who has sat in rooms with enough Webkinz and stuffed animals to populate an ark , and miles of miniature trains and tracks, I have been astonished by how breathtaking and personally revealing individual collections can be. From pressed pennies to snow globes and comic books and eerily life-like dolls, no collection is too humble to start or continue.
Collecting brings out the proud hunter-gatherers in all of us. It is a primitive urge to collect objects that please us, although not every collection belongs in a museum. The Smithsonian has a helpful web site for kids with tips on how to start collecting, and details on many of the museum’s treasures.
When you collect, your mind has singled out a particular object above all others and declared it to be of special value, without compare, most rare and excellent. Collecting and trading encourage children to accumulate and amass—but also to appraise, organize, discover, and recover. Kids spend hours counting, sorting, and categorizing, all the while boosting their math and reading skills. Whether the items are virtual or not, they imbue the owner with a certain responsibility.
Anyone can start a collection, with a carefully chosen pebble or Pretty Peacock. The possibilities are as endless and as individual as the unique sensibility of the collectors themselves. One friend collects tiny mirrors, while another gathers vintage fabrics and homemade wooden picture frames, because, quite frankly, sometimes it’s more fun to collect the frames than the pictures. The blank squares and rectangles beckon to us, full of possibilities.
I am no stranger to collecting. Open my closet and you will find it bursting with blooms. There are dozens of flowery dresses in riotous patterns and hues. My nightstands and bookshelves attest that I am a bibliophile, or lover of books. You know, the kind you pull off the shelf with your hands and open and leaf through the pages to read. I have been collecting fairytales since I was a child and I count their tattered spines among my most prized possessions.
“If you get a Kindle or Nook or …” my friend starts to tell me, before noticing my death stare. “Er, you can collect even more books and carry them all with you!” she finishes in a barely audible whisper.
“They don’t call it a Nookshelf!” I hiss back.
We collect beauty, we collect joy, because of the delight we feel when we open the book, click on the screen, or artfully arrange our masterpieces. Consider your own collections. Are they for private or public viewing? Do you share your treasures or enjoy them alone? How do you display them—in binders with clear sleeves for viewing, huge plastic bins, or custom-built cabinets, shelving, and display cases?
Or do you just love to look and stare?
