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The Welcome Book,
an American Family guest book, was published in 1990. It was an
extension of American Family Style, divided
into the seasons of the family with room for friends and family
to sign in when visiting
throughout the year. And speaking of the seasons
of family, did I fail to mention that Howard and I started our own
family style? We have two sons Carter and Sam who both live and
work in New York City.
American Junk was published in
1994, but before we go there, let me fill in some of the history
on how it was born and my conversion from legitimate collector to
junker! I had always been a bit of a forager and a natural hoarder.
When I moved to New York City after college in the late '60s, I
furnished my first apartment (believe me it didn't take much--it
was tiny!) with mostly country things I had collected in Virginia.
After Howard and I married and moved into a slightly larger place
of our own, we started spending the weekends hunting for furniture
and decorative pieces at antique shows outside of the city. We filled
our first apartment with American
folk art, samplers, primitive
furniture, and rag rugs. Our bed was layered with homespun fabrics
and patchwork quilts. At night I would light candles in lieu of
electric lamps. Poor Howard! This city boy (an only child to boot!)
had no idea what he was in for! All he craved was one comfortable
chair and enough light to read a book.
When Carter and Sam were born they joined our weekend treasure hunts.
When they got a little older and we packed ourselves into our station
wagon they loved to clasp their little hands over my eyes when they
spied a roadside tag sale up ahead. As time went by, the joy those
scavenger hunts brought--brought less. I would walk from table to
table waiting for the collector's geiger counter to go off in my chest.
It seldom did, and on the occasion that it did the object of my affection
was more and more so expensive that owning it was not even a possibility.
I would go home disappointed and empty-handed. Horrors! The joy of
collecting was becoming joyless. The energy it had infused into my
creative life was slowly burning out. I was ready to give up when
one Sunday I put on my turn signal and made a right into a
rummage shop that I had passed a milllion times. "Nothing there
for me,"was what I thought every time I zoomed by. But, on that
particular Sunday I had a change of heart. I wandered in and bore
witness to pots and pans, meat grinders, glasses, golf balls, picture
frames-- all the flotsam and jetsam of other people's lives. I shouldered
my
way through the narrow aisles of floor to ceiling shelves and in less
than a half hour emerged with three bags full of found treasures.
The tally came to about $15.40. I walked out the door with a big smile
and a new junker's heart. American Junk
was the result of that conversion. It confirms that the value of what
you collect is defined by the person who discovers it, haggles over
it, and eventually makes a new home for it. In it are articulated
articles of the junker's constituion like, "Never stop to think
do I have a place for this!" And hundred of junk finds
transformed
into decorative personal treasures. I insisted on confessing the story
of each find, where I found it and how much I spent. The Junk Guide
establishes junk geography--where to find these places state by state.
and more junk... |
