Collecting Corner: November 2008

Greetings

Collecting Corner is a blog that explores the fascinating world of collecting. It's about anything that can be collected or is connected with collecting. It's for collectors, those who want to collect, and those who don't collect but who want to understand the passion that drives those who do. It's about different ways to think about collecting and what can be collected, and ideas for figuring out what to do with your collection.

This is a forum for discussion of questions like:

What do you collect?
Why do you collect that thing, in particular?
Where do you find it?
Why do you collect, in general?
What do you do with your stuff?
What's your mode of collecting -- systematic, random, something in-between?
What's the weirdest thing you've collected?

Think of these as the standing questions of this blog. I'd love to hear from you. Please join in the discussion, or just stop by to see what we're talking about. I'll do my best to find and share information that is useful and interesting, and try to keep things organized, easy to read, and fun.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Collecting for a Cause

Here's a good reason to collect: to support a good cause.

You don't have to keep what you collect. Collect something you can turn into cash for charity. The kids in this article collected soda can pop tops and donated them to a hospital, which then recycled them and used the money to help its patients.

What else can you collect that you can get rid of easily for a good cause?

http://www.sptimes.com/2008/01/24/Hernando/Kids_are_collecting_s.shtml

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Mystery of the Missing Lighthouse

Electra would have liked this story.

The thirty-foot tall lighthouse overlooking Cape Cod's Wellfleet Harbor was built in 1881. In 1925, it was gone. Over the years, people lost track of what had become of it. Local historians believed for decades that it had been taken down and destroyed at that time.

The lighthouse was found a few months ago, 3,000 miles away in Point Montara, California. It had been moved across the country.

Colleen MacNeney figured out what had happened to the missing lighthouse with her parents, Sandra and Bob Shanklin, known as "The Lighthouse People" because they've photographed every lighthouse in the United States. They recognized an old photo of the lighthouse at the U.S. Coast Guard Historian's Office in Washington, D.C. while organizing their photos. It looked like a lighthouse they had photographed in California. They researched it and found out they were the same lighthouse. Apparently, the lighthouse service was trying to save money by replacing a dilapidated lighthouse in Point Montara with the one from Cape Cod.

Electra would have appreciated that materials from an old structure were being reused. After all, Shelburne Museum's Horseshoe Barn (which houses the vehicle collection) was built with beams and shingles salvaged from old Vermont barns and gristmills. Also, she would have liked that someone else had the idea of moving a lighthouse so many years before she moved the Colchester Reef Lighthouse from the middle of Lake Champlain to Shelburne Museum. And I'm sure Electra would feel a kinship with the Shanklins. They collect lighthouses, too, through their photographs, and through their passion to record an image of each one in the United States.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/06/case_of_the_mis.html

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/04/lighthouse.found.ap/index.html

The Quintessential Collector

My name is Valerie Biebuyck and the inspiration for this blog is Electra to the Rescue, a book I've written about a quintessential collector: Electra Havemeyer Webb. She collected folk art for the most part, although she collected other things as well, throughout most of the twentieth century, beginning at a time when "serious" collectors viewed it as little more than trash. When she ran out of space at her house, she moved some of her folk sculptures (just one of many types of folk art she acquired) to an indoor tennis court! She had so much stuff (she collected more than 120,000 objects during her lifetime) that she actually started a museum. When she ran out of space at the museum, she started collecting buildings and bringing them to the museum grounds to house her treasures. She didn't limit herself to folk art and lovely old houses, though. She also collected a lighthouse, a covered bridge, a one-room jail, a railroad station, and a 900-ton steamboat. All of this is at Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont, a place that Electra called "a collection of collections," and where Electra has satisfied her dream of sharing the acquisitions of a lifetime with others.

A Collection of Moments

You can collect things that most of us think of as collectible, such as stamps, coins, dolls. You can collect expensive things, like art by famous artists who work in a particular style, or priceless historical artifacts, or sports cars.

But you can also collect things that are not tangible. Like Nobel Laureate Heinrich Boll's character in "The Clown," who was a "collector of moments." My father-in-law speaks often of the influence that concept has had on his life -- to collect moments, such as the surprise celebration planned by his children to celebrate his 50th wedding anniversary, and another such surprise a few years later in honor of his 80th birthday. He also collects smaller, quieter moments, as well, such as a pleasant afternoon planting cedar trees and talking with my husband.

Many people think of these things as memories, but my father-in-law prefers to view them as a collection of moments.

What are moments you have collected?

Collecting Corner

Greetings

Monday, November 24, 2008

Taking Care of Your Stuff

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Collecting for a Cause

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Mystery of the Missing Lighthouse

The Quintessential Collector

What Electra Created and What It's Grown Into

The Thrill of Having

A Collection of Moments

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