The Politics of Antiques

Being alive in my 50s has afforded me a a bit of time to reflect on the past. I have most of my life behind me but I have lived throughout some pretty amazing times and I truly enjoy some simple things in life. As my parents were "accumulators" and to some maybe hoarders, I caught the collecting bug very early in life. 

I explored the deserted mansions of Long Island, NY, I dug bottles (and garbage) from ancient dumps long forgotten and I visited every tag sale and antique shop on the east end of Long Island starting in the mid sixties. Pure bliss is the only way I can describe the glee of finding a really nice Bitters bottle under a few inched of dirt in the woods or finding a pile of Travels to Many Lands in a dark corner of an abandoned mansion. All of this helped to shape my thinking about the value of reuse and of objects that travel forward from a time past. 

I still feel that bliss as an adult. The thrill is different but it is still a thrill to pick up something that has an old soul. A soul that comes from the patina all over it or just the ascetics of design from long ago or the materials that the object is made of. The fact that many of the objects have been handled by people that are no longer above ground has an impact on those feeling too. 

If you are like me you can (mentally) slip into the context of the person and the time that the object might have existed in. You wonder what that person was like and you may even wonder if one of your ancestors might have come into contact with the object. If they did what were they doing, what were they thinking? For a split second you might go back there too.

Then you come back and you put the object aside or on a shelf or you use it as intended by a modern context or you repurpose it by using it in a context foreign to its original purpose. You don't throw it away though and this is where I intend to insert the notion of politics and antiquing. 

Sure we live in a time where a lot os stuff gets used and thrown away. There are many thoughts I have to why this is, some evil and some just because of bad design. But what I really think is that we have entered an age that ignores the principles that governed the manufacture of goods not so long ago. I will try to explain this as very simply as it came to me when I spent a few years out west in Nevada and California.

My time in the west made me miss my home in New England. Everywhere I went I saw the sameness of everything and everyone. But more importantly (and trying hard to make this point) I reflected on how back in New England all of the older buildings were built in such a way so that they would be there not only for the current inhabitant but that they were built for their great-great-great grandchildren. I reflected on how the churches, libraries and other important buildings were made of stone and had "hundred year" slate roofs. I compared them to the wire-mesh spray-coated, foam buildings I found out west. 

These observations brought me to the conclusion that we were no longer building stuff for our decedents to enjoy but that we were building stuff to be enjoyed by the individual that bought it only. When you pick up a piece of furniture that was made during the later part of the industrial revolution you need some help. Clearly the materials were different then and dictated the composition but the stuff is still here and I would argue that the builder was not thinking about the current buyer but she was thinking about how the product was being built for the decedents of that purchaser. 

So when I can I always choose to reuse. Not just because I like the piece but because I know that the person that made the item did not expect it to be tossed into a landfill or  built it cheap so that it would break in a predictable product life cycle - they built it to travel time and end up lasting a long time. 

To me the politics of antiques are a dissent from consumerism and the sameness of everything. Sure there are some nice things happening in design and manufacture but wouldn't it be nice if the stuff that we built today might be designed to traverse time and not wind up in the trash bin on someones obsolesce schedule?