A few of my favorite things …

Very fragile — and broken. All I have left is this single photograph.

Collecting is a beautiful disease. It’s insidious and there’s no known cure. You get a thing. You love it. You get another thing … similar, but not the same. One day, you look around and you have a collection.

Chinese antique porcelain and Asian sacred art grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go. There is something so awesome — awe-inspiring — about holding something made thousands of years ago and now lives on your fireplace mantel. Imagine all the people who have touched it, whose lives this pot has touched, whose prayers this Buddha has heard. It’s living history.

Thus, when I had to reduce the collection, I didn’t sell anything. I split the collection and gave more than half my favorite pieces to my friends, people who I knew would treasure it as I did. How much was it worth? A lot, maybe. Or not so much. I don’t know. It was beyond price to me. Money is transitory but these precious, fragile, beautiful pieces need to be protected and saved from harm. They needed to be kept safe, not sold as decorations.

So much of the world’s great art has been casually destroyed by governments and individuals with no reverence for art or history. If I can save one Han pot, one Qianlong vase, one Tibetan Buddha … I’ve done something of value.

I no longer collect, but I continue to preserve and protect.

 

Author: Marilyn Armstrong

Opinionated writer with hopes for a better future for all plus a big helping of cynicism.

9 thoughts on “A few of my favorite things …”

  1. It’s still a great collection!! And, yes, they need to be spiffed up a bit. We have a lot of spiffing up to do. Tomorrow is another day.

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      1. We have similar tastes – one of my favorite things is this jade Sleeping Buddha I found at a little tent on a beach in Santa Monica. And my silver Ganesh I have behind me : )

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        1. I have a great bronze Ganesh … he’s the patron of writers and I feel he watches over me, my favorite of the Hindu pantheon 🙂

          On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 10:10 AM, SERENDIPITY

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