Maine Antique Digest, May 2015 13-A
ANGIBLES
Buy Where the Dealers Buy!
Open Daily 10am - 5pm
935 U.S. Route One, York, ME 03909
(Next to Maritime Antiques) • 207.363.7788
www.tangiblesonline.comLaurence Philip Sisson,
(American, b. 1928),
Oil on Canvas,
Maine Seascape.
HK ANTIQUES
Henry and Kay Goben
Overland Park, KS
(913) 766-0706
Unique Walnut Mortar, with
Original Lid, Allowing Storage
and Preservation, and Pestle.
Generous 8 1/2” by 6” size.
Excellent condition.
See this and more great antiques at
www.hkfineantiques.comor
www.DigAntiques.comunder ‘SHOP.’
Also on Facebook/HK Antiques
Don Olson
Fine American Antiques
Rochester, NY, 585-385-9002
earlypieces@aol.com www.donolsonantiques.comThe Intersection of Early and Color
VIBRANT 19th-c. Folk Art Still Life. Full of life and energy!
Must be seen in COLOR at
www.donolsonantiques.comD
ebbie Turi is managing the first
annual Art & Antiques Show
at the Ridgewood Woman’s Club in
Ridgewood, New Jersey, on June 6 and 7.
Turi has previously teamed up with Brad
Reh to run a couple of shows: the Art,
Design, and Antiques Show at Wallace
Hall during Americana Week in New
York City, and the Bedford Antiques
Show at Historical Hall in Bedford, New
York, in November.
Turi said she brings her 20 years of
experience as an antiques dealer to her
management. “I approach this endeavor
with a new and fresh mindset to create
the best boutique show in New Jersey.
Dealers are clamoring for a new venue,”
she said, “one which is both intimate and
accessible to the Metropolitan New York
audience.”
The venue is the prestigious Woman’s
Club of Ridgewood, established in 1909.
Its members strive to promote civic and
social causes. The clubhouse, where the
show will be held, was built in 1928 and
features many architectural details that
will set off the items displayed by the
select group of art and antiques dealers.
Exhibiting dealers will include Donna
Kmetz, Jaffe & Thurston Art & Antiques,
Vintage Poster Arts, Anne Hall Antique
Prints, William Jeffrey Gallery, Gardner
Burke Antiques, Knollwood Antiques,
Marc Witus, Francis Crespo, Fair Trade
Antiques, LorraineWambold Estate Jewel-
ry, Sorab & Roshi, and Post Road Gallery.
The show will run on June 6, 10 a.m.
to 6 p.m., and June 7, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
For more information, contact Debbie
Turi at (973) 464-9793,
<dturi1@veri zon.net> or via the website
(www.dturi antiqueshows.com).
New Show in Ridgewood, New Jersey
by Baron Perlman
S
ome people never lose their innocence
to passion. Sometimes collecting
antiques never gets into one’s blood.
Not all collectors reach the final stage
of their journey; people stop at different
way stations to full-blown accumulating
insanity. For others, collecting antiques
can be a life journey. Like those fabulous
characters in Chaucer’s
Canterbury
Tales
, those who accumulate the detritus
of history for their own delight can’t
resist sharing the lessons they have
learned. Antiques buffs reflect every
shade of personality, from naiveté to
brutal cynicism, and their views were
shaped by their experiences.
I think it only fair to examine the stag-
es in the life of most collectors. Perhaps
you will find yourself somewhere in this
sketch. I did. Being a social scientist in
a previous life, I have a penchant for
data—robust sample sizes, validity, and
the like—but in describing the life stag-
es of an antiques collector, experience,
discussion, and observation will have to
suffice.
Stage 1 – Innocence
. (
I knew not what
I was getting into, but wish I had.)
When
I married, my wife had two antique piec-
es of furniture, a refinished Victorian
washstand and a country (probably Ohio)
drop-leaf kitchen table. We still have
both. Her wedding present from me was
a nice bowl and pitcher. (Does anyone
collect or sell those anymore? In my day,
they were a beginner’s attraction.) There
was an outside influence, too, or I might
have settled for that modest collection of
pieces. Charlie and Betty, our next-door
neighbors in East Lansing, Michigan,
had some country antiques. Charlie’s
mother had been a dealer in Maryland. I
thought nothing of it at the time. If I had
only known where this seemingly pure
stage of my life was headed.
Stage 2 – Looking for something
to do
. (
Oh, had I only filled my time in
other ways.)
And so came the gorgeous
spring day when Charlie and Betty asked
if my wife and I wanted to go “antiqu-
ing.” Sure, I replied. I had no notion what
this antiquing thing entailed but liked to
drive, loved the countryside, and so off
we went. We had fun dashing about over
the next few months and even found a
favorite shop or two. (Looking back,
they won our return because of what
they sold, not the dealers themselves.) It
was fun, inexpensive (do you hear that,
inexpensive!), and my wife and I had an
apartment to furnish. Seeking interesting
bargains in old pieces became a bit of a
habit. And so many things looked attrac-
tive.
Stage 3 – It begins to get in your
blood
. (
Intoxication with collecting is a
subtle, initially benign, process.)
What
causes people to stop being mere buyers
and become antiques collectors? My the-
ory is that what first infects a collector
is not a
find
or a piece that is a 10, but
the environment in which the antiques
are found. My early days of collecting
in Michigan were a panorama of an-
tiques shops, most often on picturesque
two-lane roads off the beaten track.
Sometimes they were true shops, some-
times a room off a dealer’s home. I still
remember the smells after so many dec-
ades as if it were yesterday—an enticing
amalgam of dust, sequestered air, old
wooden floors (always wooden floors, if
my memory serves me right), furniture
wax, oil, and varnish. The sense of touch
lingers, the sensation of running my fin-
gers over pieces of furniture as I looked
and learned. Sunlight through windows,
motes of dust dancing in the air. An-
tiques shops were (and are) a world unto
themselves.
Part of the charm was good conver-
sation, sometimes over coffee or nib-
bles. Voices were low; the shops had a
church-like hushed, sacred feel to them.
One was not looking necessarily for
anything too specific—that determined,
dogged, single-mindedness develops lat-
er in your antiquity journey. Even then,
Israel Sack’s observation (I did not know
who he was yet) of pieces talking to you,
if you could allow yourself to hear their
whispers, was experienced, even if not
consciously. I usually knew when some-
thing was good but had not read or seen
enough to necessarily put into words
why. Of course, with fewer shops now-
adays perhaps there is less to seduce a
collector, making it more difficult to fall
in love.
When we collectors reach this stage,
we are vulnerable. Love lurks around the
corner, and there is near certainty that
some god or goddess is waiting to tempt
us.
Stage 4 – Cataclysm
.
(The twists and
turns of our lives can be unexpected and
unpredictable.)
I do not know if all col-
lectors who become serious about col-
lecting experience a life-changing event,
but the ones with whom I have talked
did. My wife and I had two. The first was
aided and abetted by our neighbor and
friend Charlie, who recommended a trip
to Colonial Williamsburg. The message
was innocence personified: “Go there
for a vacation; you will love it.” My wife
and I did just that. I had never seen an-
tiques like the ones I saw, nor the settings
in which they dwelt. We took tours, went
to the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller muse-
um, dined at the taverns, and walked for
miles.
It was this visit that provided the im-
petus for a question I have pondered but
never satisfactorily answered to this day.
Collectors are taught to train their eyes,
to become discerning, to learn, to know!
We are told to buy the best we can afford,
but what if the best a collector can afford
falls short of the trained eye? The Wil-
liamsburg trip, so long ago, moved me to
the next stage of collecting.
Our second life-changing event was
meeting Bernice and Jim Miller at a
The Stages of an Antiques Collector’s Life—
A Curious Journey
Stages
continues on page 18-A