Curiosity Shop........

I like to turn old things into useful items.  This cupboard was in the back of an old furniture store. The cupboard has it's original glass on it and the shelves were filled with very old containers of stains and oils used by the store to touch up scratches on their wood furniture that they sold. I salvaged this probably thirty years ago.

I had forgotten that the stains were in it until this summer when I was cleaning out the basement and noticed a box full of antique containers, both metal and glass with glass stoppers. One real curious thing about it is that the top of it has pulleys on it.  It makes me think that it might be a dumb waiter cupboard in a kitchen, that was raised and lowered from a kitchen to a basement area to keep foods cool. I don't have any proof of it but the brass rollers are old and the intent seems logical.

This is not a great picture, as you can see that there is a reflection of another "what not" cupboard of my wife's.  I will reshoot the whole thing sometime to share more of the contents but the major things that you can see I will explain.

The brown pitcher is old and belong to my Grandma Brooks. It has seen better days and if I had actual access to a kiln, I could reconnect all pieces with glaze and a refire.  The blue mixing bowl behind it is one of my other collections.  I like to keep antique clay bowls and this blue glazed bowl is beautiful.  It was not in the cupboard but was just sitting out holding some oranges to snack on whenever.

The orange molded quail on the top shelf is from one of my students who gave it to me during one of first years of teaching in the 70's.  He was a sweet guy who had made it in shop, and he wanted me to have it.  That was back when I was so young as a teacher that I never thought about students actually liking me.

The three pottery pieces have three diverse histories.  The middle pot is one that I bought in California probably thirty years ago at a then Pottery Barn business.  It sold dishes and thrown pots.

The one on the right, shown above, is one that I inherited or begged for from my kids relatives.  It is actually a tourist trap pot that is probably fifty years old or more. A distant cousin of my kid's grandmother would send her these things every once in awhile. It came from the New Mexico area.  It wasn't made by someone famous as there is no name on it but it done well as an old pueblo Indian pot.

The one on the left, shown above, was made by me.  It has a forked tongue snake carved into its shoulder rim.  I took a graduate class in which we were to create artifact artworks.  I created this pot by using the coil method and then I polished it with a smooth rock from Lake Superior.  Maria Montoya Martinez and her husband used this method with their famous blackware pottery.  I originally fired it on a beach with charcoal, but right before I quit teaching I put it in a kiln and fired it to 1200 degrees F.  It made it stronger than the low firing that it has had all these years.

I have many different things in the cupboard and others cupboards too, that have memories. Pinecones, driftwood, and a marjolica bird that my father-in-law had found in an auction box of junk can be seen in the picture.

I appreciate history and the things that came from different eras, so many things that I grab up are meaningless to some, but to me they tell a story of how things were made and about the designs used in our country's past.  Some items are just everyday items that were used by a generation back, but to me they are a piece of their lives.  They aren't living  anymore but some of the things that surrounded them can be appreciated.   Yes, I am the junk man, but I doubt I am not the only one in blog land as I view others' blogs.  It is fun to collect and fun to remember.     Thanks for reading......