"In Flagrante Collecto"

[fiefoe]

Marilynn Gelfman Karp explains the art of private curating:

• the tangible residence of the intangible memories
• the solace of things  /  empowerment by delimitation
• Ownership is an act of self-affirming intimacy and self-committing responsibility.
• The more perfect and intact the object, the greater its power to intoxicate and pass on its package of dynamic energy.
• She follows the filament of a private continuity. Collectors mediate their own elevations.
• Collecting.. is about defining personal domains, choosing one's own precincts of concentration, embracing, organizing, and refining, strategic reconnaissance, and giving safe haven.

Things she appreciates:
__ the rubber stamp and its vocabulary of graceful outlines
__ hummingbird love tokens: The residual benefits of Victorian energy, experimentation, and invention are with us today, but...
__ exaggeration postcards: flash the queer exuberance of another time
__ mosquito coils: two preformed, nested spirals, needlessly superior in their format {But carcinogenic, alas!}
__ Poignant Repairs: objects transmuted by their repair  (such as the coping saw with the striking addition of a deer-antler handle)
__ex-votos,  Japanese home front textiles,  figured billiard table pockets, cigar silks (that women can stitch into quilts), Bottoms-Up glass (nude ladies draped over), lark-lures {ortolan again!!!}, end of day pieces

__ Lord Stanhope {Hester's dad!}
__ Pointer's disease was the main hazard of hand-grinding needles caused by inhalation of finely ground steel dust.