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 Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2007 11:28 pm
A Curious Discovery
Friday, 27 January 2007
Call me old fashioned, but I've always enjoyed mucking about in antique stores. My mom always had to drag me into them kicking and screaming when I was little, but as I got older, I began to collect things of my own, as she did. Now, I look forward to finding new treasures and old memories of times long gone by.
In my normal fashion, after a rather interesting lecture in my History of Photography class on some of the first methods of photography, I decided to browse around the huge antique mall we have here in my town. It's one of those multi-dealer booth-type things, which can make it a little confusing, but you could honestly spend hours in there and not see everything. It's massive. It's great. I usually only have a few things I look for (Fenton art glass, Wade miniatures, things I know mom collects), and then if something catches my eye or I think there might be something interesting just beyond the somewhat moth-eaten furry.. thing, then I'll investigate. Today was no different of an occasion. I hadn't found any interesting photos, but there wasn't much else to do, so I continued to slowly make my way around the booths and see what could be discovered.
While poking about in a cluttered and rather disheveled stall looking for any hatpins that might be interesting, I happened upon a dusty wooden box, oh, around five by four inches around, and something like three inches high. It had worn but rather ornate designs carved into the lid, and a faded label on the front of it- one of those small metal brackets you insert your own card into. It was rather pretty, or seemed to be, under the years of dust it seemed to have accumulated wherever it had been prior to its current home behind a pile of old, exotic postcards and a few glass bottles. It had a little latch on the front of it, which I tried to open, but it was a bit corroded and wouldn't budge but a tiny bit. I didn't want to damage the latch by forcing it, but was very curious just the same. I could hear something shifting about inside, but it was muffled, and certainly not loud enough to make out. Still, this box caught my attention, and something about it struck me as very curious. The price sticker was on the bottom (it had been there a while), and said, in faint scratchy pencil "wooden box, 1920's?," under that, "15-." I twitched a little at the price, it was a worn ol' wooden box that wouldn't open, but I suppose it was fair, being 80 years old and all.
I took my new find up to the counter. I wanted to get home and find out what this box contained. The elderly woman at the counter was nice, though quiet, as she usually is, but eyed my box carefully, examining the tag and its faded label. "Where did.. you get this?" she asked. I raised an eyebrow and indicated the general direction from which I had come. She smiled and nodded, I paid, and left.
Back home, I set the box on my desk and just sat there for a while, studying it, just wondering what could be inside. I didn't pick it up or try to open it just yet.. there were other things that needed to be done first. Dinner was a welcome priority, so my box would have to wait.
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Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 9:31 pm
What, a Flower?
Friday, 2 February 2007
So this mysterious box had been sitting on my desk for about a week. After all that fun at the antique store (I ended up going back the next day, and going to the -other- antique store in town, god they're fun), I needed to get back to my schoolwork and other such responsible things. Projects, essays, quizzes, paintings.. ugh. Add in work as well, and you have a busy, busy Orph.
Back to the box, though.
Having nothing better to do, and not feeling like cleaning my disaster of a dining room, I grabbed it and went to sit with it on the floor of my living room, one of the few open spaces in my apartment. I turned on a light and shone it down on the box and I.
I turned it over several times, inspecting it to see what could be seen, but there wasn't much else to be seen that hadn't already been dicovered before I bought it at the antique shop. I did study the carvings on the lid a bit more, though. They were kinda curly, organic.. I could make out a leaf or two. Floral-ish, I suppose. You could tell that they weren't mechanically done, like with a laser (as newer woodcarvings can be done), but looked to be rather uneven upon close inspection, as if someone had sat there with a tiny little chisel and taken great care to make the design just perfect. I loved it. I can appreciate hard work done with your hands, as this was. There were a few matching swirlies next to the label bracket on the front of the box, too. The edges of the box were worn, as if someone had held it many times. This box was someone's treasure.. they seemed to have valued it quite a bit. I felt a bit priveleged that fate had entrusted me to something once so precious.
After admiring the box's exterior for a little while longer, I moved my attention to the latch on the front. It was tiny, but rather rusty and corroded, and fragile. One of those little flip up ones, y'know, that have the option of putting on a tiny padlock if you so desire. Exactly why I didn't want to pry it open at the antique shop. It was much more fun to buy it and have the satisfaction of having the honest curiosity and ability to actually see what was inside.
I picked at the latch a bit with a fingernail, and upon discovering it was a bit more corroded than originally thought, I hopped up to grab a little screwdriver and carefully began to pry the latch open. With a little gentle effort, it clicked open and the lid popped up a tiny bit, almost as if it were glad to finally breathe some air again. Excitedly, I slowly lifted the lid and peered inside.
Inside the box, tucked inside a little piece of faded cloth, was.. a flower? Wait, what? A flower? I picked it up carefully by the stem end. Oddly enough, it wasn't dried. "Huh.. that's weird." It wasn't even crispy. That was weird. If this thing was as old as the label said, that bloom should have been crispy and desintegrated. It should have been powder in the bottom of the box. But no.. this was still supple. I couldn't quite tell what kind it was (or used to be), it was closed a bit too much for that. If it were open, then maybe, but it looked like it was about three days from blooming fully before someone carefully plucked it off whatever stem it had grown from. There wasn't much else inside the box other than that fabric swatch the bloom had been resting on. I left it inside the box, but set the bloom on top of the closed lid of the box, and set the box inside the little greenhouse I have near my front entrance. I keep my rose collection in there. (All red, each one made of something different.. I have roses made from metal, glass, paper, wood, cloth, and leather.)
While the interior find was a bit of an anticlimax, I still loved the box. The bloom was interesting, but I wasn't too worried about it. Maybe there was some sort of preservative around back then that we aren't aware of now. Maybe it used to belong to a scientist? It seemed to be part of a themed collection in the shop.. the bottles, exotic postcards, funky gadgets, etc. Oh well. Maybe something would come to me later on.
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Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 12:26 am
My mini-Experiment, Part 1.
Saturday, 17 February 2007
The funny thing about flowers is that they're ever-changing. Every time you look at them, something is different. Something about their appearance or structure has changed, even though it isn't visible to the casual observer.
My curious little bloom had been sitting in front of the window for a while.. I had been busy with plenty of other things - painting, school work, work work, various other crap that I'd rather not be doing, etc. I just hadn't had the time to sit down and take another look at my odd discovery.
Bored with painting, I plopped on the couch next to the dog and out of habit, I guess, I glanced over at my little greenhouse, the one containing the bloom and all my other roses. I couldn't see much through the glass, and there was a glare from the tv. I got up from the couch, opened the hinged lid of the greenhouse, and picked up the bloom by its stem (yeah, yeah.. I know you're not supposed to pick them up that way, but I doubted the bloom would mind). Sitting in front of the window should have warmed it up, therefore drying it out a bit, but it actually seemed to have opened more.. like, it was more in bloom than it was when I first took it out of the box! Something way weird was going on. This bloom was defying all science.
Intrigued, I decided to test its limits. I took it out of the greenhouse and set it on the windowsill itself where it would get direct sunlight, instead of the sort-of half light it got from sitting inside a glass box. Maybe it would open more. Maybe it wouldn't. I wasn't quite sure where I was going with the whole thing, but what else could I do? Better than having it sit there, gathering dust, anyway. I'd check it again in a few days and see if there was any change. Perhaps try a few other things with it as well.
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