Collecting a piece of the past...

Spending so much time the past few weeks hovering over Halloween folk art and watching people flock to a coveted artist and then quizzing people and listening to their stories of why they LOVE folk art or why they LOVE Halloween or any piece of art or a particular holiday or just collecting in general, got me thinking.... Why do people collect things? Standing in line in Northville Michigan behind a couple from Houston Texas I started to realize there are definitely different kinds of collectors. This "older" couple does not collect anything old, vintage, antique--whatever you want to call it, but they DO collect. They admitted to purchasing their house because it had more display space and more storage room for their collectibles. She collects ornaments... not just Christmas ornaments, ornaments for all seasons and holidays (thus being at a Halloween show nearly 1400 miles from their home), just no antique ornaments. They have something like a dozen Christmas trees and they leave at least one up year round to display seasonal ornaments (Easter, Halloween, etc... ). He collects marbles, but not antique marbles... huh? I did not even know there was such a thing as modern marble collecting. Apparently it is quite an art with marbles that look like eyes and also animal print marbles, flowers, unique colors and a variety of sizes from very small to very large. Possibly I have seen these glass art marbles before, but just never thought of anyone collecting them. I'm sure they make for a beautiful collection. I found this couple fascinating. They definitely represented a breed of collector that I had never talked with before. Since many of the items at these Halloween shows are contemporary folk art pieces, it was clear that most of the people were either Halloween fanatics who had moved into the realm of folk art or folk art collectors grabbing up really amazing Halloween theme pieces.

As I said in my last post, I am not obsessed by Halloween nor am I a folk art collector. I enjoyed my time with an old friend and I did pick up a couple of items that I thought were cute.

Above: metal art pumpkin party hat purchased at Halloween & Vine in Petaluma and displayed in our dining room on one of the pumpkins from our garden

Below: Willet the hand crafted Halloween Party Bear purchased at Ghoultide Gatherings in Michigan

But honestly, I usually do not even decorate for Halloween (I know, I know, I'm an old fuddy duddy). For me it is like thinking about making dinner after getting home from work at 6:30pm. I have to decide what to make, possibly pick up a few groceries, prepare the meal and then clean up after the meal. As much as I love to cook, its overwhelming and not really enjoyable to be cleaning the kitchen at 9:00pm. Same with decorating... with those extra few hours (not to mention dollars), do I choose to go all out and decorate the house, or spend a few hours oil painting or working in the garden? There are definitely trade-offs in life and for me, a few pumpkins and the colors of the leaves on our dogwoods, quince and japanese maples are enough to keep me in the Halloween spirit.

So back to the question of collecting. I think people collect for a few different reasons. First I think some people collect because they have an affinity for a specific holiday, or artist or item, like marbles or purses. I also think there is a type of collector called a "hoarder" or pack rat. Someone that just wants to collect as much stuff as possible without ever getting rid of anything. We bought our house from a hoarder... she collected everything from antique china to sheet music to costume jewelry. She spent hours at estate sales and thrift stores. There were rooms where you could not even open the door for the piles and piles of treasure she had accumulated. When a woman in the neighborhood died, she would lobby the widower to purchase her entire wardrobe whether it fit her or not. There were fur coats from size 6 to size 14. We had a pretty crazy awesome estate sale here before we could even think of moving in. There are collectors who consider their hobby an investment, like many sports cards collectors, and coin and stamp collectors. And then I think there is the kind of collector that wants to grab a hold of a piece of the past and embrace it, envision its humble or not so humble beginnings, reminisce about its life, where it has been and who has held it before... and then never let it go.

I was a teenager when my Grandma Elsie died. She knew she was dying, of stomach cancer, and before she passed, she called me and my Mom and my Sister to her house and gave us things that meant a great deal to her... things that had been in her family for a long time or had special meaning in her own life. She let me hand select my favorites of her English Bone China teacup collection. I still collect the most amazing china tea cups although it is rare that I find one special enough to join my Grandma's collection.
She also gave me her collection of pink depression glass. Her green collection went to my Sister. I occasionally pick up pieces and sometimes I receive them as gifts like this beautiful tea cup I received from my Mom....And then there is my collection of miniature vintage American Pottery vases. My original miniature vase was actually Swedish and was also a gift from my Grandma, but unfortunately it did not survive the childhood of a couple of rowdy boys named Joey and Sammy. I have continued to love these little vases that I have collected in honor of Grandma's vase and I pick them up whenever and wherever I can. They are not that common which makes them even more special.

Below: a sampling of my miniature vases. Chloe is inspecting the largest, a beautiful red vase approximately 5 1/2 inches tall.

Below is one of my favorite pictures. Me, Mom, Great Grandma McPeek and Grandma Elsie.

So I have decided that I am a collector, a collector of the never letting go kind, a collector of childhood memories of my Grandma. These little pieces of history remind me of a time she represents and that will never be forgotten.

Wickedly Awesome Folk Art

Seriously, I have never been the biggest fan of Halloween. I LOVE autumn, its my favorite season of the year... and don't get me wrong, I like Halloween. It is certainly an over-the-top theme holiday with so many possibilities for decorating everything from your front yard to your face. And the food... I remember moving to Arizona for college and spending Halloween with the Godsey family in the Caballero Circle cul-de-sac drinking homemade root beer from a "steaming" cauldron complete with dry ice and everything. I remember Halloween themed college parties with hayrides and barn dances, but I guess I have just never been obsessed by it. I remember carving pumpkins as a kid and with my kids. Who doesn't like trick-or-treating and bringing home bags of candy that you cannot possibly eat without getting seriously ill?

And the years and years of fun costumes (certainly this is one of the joys of being a parent right... dressing your kids up in silly, I mean cute, costumes... )

Of course Joey is the turtle on the left and Sammy: Winnie-the-Pooh!

and I will never forget the year Sammy dressed up like Austin Powers and celebrated Halloween with the Ellsworth Family. Taylor walked in and said, "who are you supposed to be... Elton John???" Ha, too funny!!!!

So this year I reunited myself with my old ASU college roommate, Tracey. I say I reunited because I stalked her on the internet and finally found her, sent her an email and anxiously awaited her reply. It had been 17 years since I had seen her. Its kinda crazy how 17 long years have gone by and yet we get together and it is like no time has passed at all--except that we have 17 years of stuff to talk about--like we needed anything more to TALK ABOUT!

Now Tracey IS obsessed with Halloween. She has the most awesome house and it is just filled with beautiful antiques and one of a kind folk art, mainly holiday pieces.
Above: Tracey's kitchen island decorated with sweets for a Halloween Party

When Tracey asked me to go with her to a Halloween Folk Art Show, I honestly was mainly looking forward to spending some time with Tracey. We had grand plans of hanging out in San Francisco and seeing the play 'Wicked'. Probably doing some shopping and visiting an old friend of Tracey's who owns a bakery (yum!). But in the end, the show ended up being one of my favorite parts of the trip. Halloween and Vine was in Petaluma (just north of San Francisco) a couple weekends ago and I didn't realize how amazing some of the folk art would be. In the picture below, the artist has crafted some beautiful pieces out of fabric and then hand painted them. She makes the eyeballs and everything. Not exactly wickedly evil looking, but amazingly constructed.

Speaking of wickedly evil, Tracey ended up purchasing the couple below. They are each at least three and a half feet tall and come with their own death certificates:

After the show, we spent some time enjoying Petaluma and then also had to find a TJ Maxx so Tracey could purchase another piece of luggage to house her treasures. The couple above were not the only purchases Tracey made that day.

Then, if spending a long weekend in San Francisco wasn't enough, as it turns out, the even better Halloween Folk Art Show was to be the following weekend (last weekend) in Northville Michigan. Of course I would not be crazy enough to spend two weekends in a row out of town with Tracey at Halloween Folk Art Shows.... would I... ???

Ghoultide Gathering was really in the most ideal location and the weather totally cooperated. Yes! It was 50 degrees, windy and raining!!! Ha, if you are going to love Halloween, you can't expect it to be 95 degrees and sunny (like it was in Petaluma). This was true Halloween weather and I truly got sick, but hey, the folk art was AMAZING. They did not allow pictures inside, but the little village where the show was being held was really fun. We trudged around in the mud and, of course, Tracey bought more amazing folk art.

We were greeted by this guy:

and this guy:

The buildings at Mill Race Historical Village in Northville, MI (outside of Detroit) are all historically significant buildings that were facing demolition in their original locations and were moved to Mill Race Village. Its a fun gathering place for the town and also a great way to learn a little bit about the history of the buildings. Also a great spot for the folk art show.

Spooky...

Finally... Tracey with her "Buddah-Head" Pumpkin... (don't ask).

We officially (heart) Park City

Michael and I have been in Salt Lake City since Thursday. We visited the Salt Lake City GTT office, we spent some quality time with newlyweds Andy & Lindsay, and today we decided to spend a few hours in Park City.

We have now officially fallen in the love with the ski resort town of Park City. We had lunch at a cute little french cafe, Bistro 412.
They had an excellent looking menu and it was difficult to decide what to order:

Oh, and these pictures were all taken with my iPhone because we didn't have any other cameras with us. The bread and olive oil at Bistro 412 may have been the best I have ever eaten. No kidding. Delicious baguette with a delicately crispy crust and a soft delicious middle, but the real key was the olive oil. Light oil with a little balsamic, red pepper, rosemary and garlic thrown in, yum!

So delicious, here I am stuffing my face:

They make their own sodas. Michael ordered the homemade root beer and said it was "pretty good". We decided to split an appetizer, a soup, and a sandwich. We knew it would be too much food, and it was. Not sure why we decided to order a quesadilla at a french bistro, but it sounded good at the time. As it turned out, it was not all that good. A goat cheese & mango quesadilla with an avocado salsa sounded scrumptious, but in fact there was too much goat cheese which overpowered all the other flavors. Something in it was spicy, but that was really the only redeeming quality. I would not order this again, but I do think I will try and recreate a better version at home where I specialize in eclectic cuisine, not french!

We ordered the french onion soup (this should be a slam dunk, right?) and also the smoked chicken, provolone and pesto croissant (french, right?) sandwich. Both were very delicious although the french onion soup was our favorite. It was just perfect.

The sandwich came with a whole slew of shoestring fries which we could not even begin to finish, but they were great. They had lots of other delicious options like wild mushroom strudel, daily quiche special, pork loin french dip, steak frites, and even beef bourguignonne.

After lunch I got some love from Franz the bear...

We decided to take the city chair lift up to the top of the mountain and it turned out to be really fun.

At first I was a little scared as the "chairs" are a little high off the ground (obviously I am not a skier).

I was a little worried about my slip on sandals after seeing someone's flip flop abandoned below on the netting over the street, about 20 feet into the climb. So I kept my feet very still the whole time and my sandals stayed securely on my feet.

The forest and sky were just beautiful today.Although it looks like the ground is very close to our feet, solid ground was actually about 30 feet below...

The original chair lift towers run parallel to the new chair lift:

Here's the mechanism that keeps us safely moving up and down the mountain:

Heading back down through the aspen forest:

The aspens were beautiful. Here a few maples are thrown in for beautiful early fall color.

View on the way down:

Heading back down to Park City:

A really fun aspect of the chair lift and surrounding area during the summer are great mountain biking trails. Lots of people took the chair lift up with their bikes following behind and then they rode the trails back down. Looked like fun.

After our fun chair lift ride, we headed back into town for a little shopping. We stopped into a very cool pet store. The owner was great. They currently have about a half dozen Newfoundlands and they sell a raw protein diet, plus supplements. It was interesting to hear this woman's theory about the life span of pure breeds and how vaccines and mass produced foods are killing our dogs. She previously had golden retrievers that she did not vaccinate and that she fed a raw diet and they lived 16-19 years. Nearly unheard of for golden retrievers. Definitely something worth thinking about. Below Michael is getting to know a 200 pound Newfoundland and I am petting a 160 pound 1 1/2 year old "puppy". So cute!

The weather was perfect, the town adorable, the food 'mostly' delicious.
We had a blast!

We

Park City