Decorating with Collections
I collect many things. You know how when you go into an antique store (if you do) someone says “What do you collect?” Well, I have to enumerate on my fingers: old prints, photographs of old buildings, old suitcases (the tweed type), old cameras, old books, and old clocks. What do I do with these things? I display them, because I love to look at them.
I’ve never been one to own a lot of clothes, and I barely have enough silverware and glassware to go around, but I love these old things.
Every collection began in some unusual way. I started the prints with one that was in my husband’s grandmother’s garage mouldering away. I found a photograph of an old church I loved, and other building photographs followed. I can remember where I bought each thing; it’s what I do in a strange city instead of buying souvenirs that no one wants. I buy something that I want instead.
Once I was performing with my puppets in another city and staying with some kind friends there. I admired a landscape photograph of some women playing tennis and my host said “Oh, I was getting ready to give that to Goodwill. You’re welcome to it.” So I brought it home in a suitcase and began adding others to it. These old photographs are the perfect match for a slanted ceiling in my living room.
In 2008 I was incredibly honored by being voted “Woman of the Year” by the Christian Women’s Job Corp in my city of Granbury, Texas. The honor came with a beautiful white angel statue, which became one of the focal points of my home. When I moved a couple of years later I was lucky enough to have a mantlepiece on which to display it, and had a good time collecting white things to surround her with. The best collections, like the best friendships, grow organically, they can’t be forced.
Over Christmas I got to see my oldest and dearest friend. We have been best friends for more than 20 years now, and although sometimes a year will pass before we see one another, Beth and I are connected at such a deep level that it seems that no time at all has passed.
We catch up on our kids (and now my grandkids) and our jobs and husbands, but we also find time to talk about ourselves – our deep, personal selves.
As I look around my living room, I see very little that I purchased new; almost everything I have had some previous owner that loved it. Old things, like old friends, are the best.
