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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.com

Laurence 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.com

or

www.DigAntiques.com

under ‘SHOP.’

Also on Facebook/HK Antiques

Don Olson

Fine American Antiques

Rochester, NY, 585-385-9002

earlypieces@aol.com www.donolsonantiques.com

The 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.com

D

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