Wander through any museum, and you will get a sense of the breadth of a particular thing. It might be painting or sculpture, fossils or ancient artifacts, musical instruments or machinery. For the casual observer it can be entertaining as well as informative to see the range of an item, whether it be post-modern impressionism paintings or ball gowns. But while we are well acquainted with institutions that feature fine art and natural history, there are numerous other collections which have been amassed that are less well known. It's not that they are a secret, but rather the lack of demand for them likely doesn't warrant a public exhibition. Though in a case of never say never, I confess that one of the most interesting compendiums we ever perused was in Amsterdam at the Museum of Bags and Purses. Sadly it is now closed, so you'll have to get your Hermès Kelly Bag fix elsewhere.
Many of these collections are scientific in nature, aimed more at cataloging the various elements as opposed to exhibiting them. Take the U.S. National Fungus Collection, the world's largest repository of fungal specimens. Housed at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland, it includes approximately 1 million reference specimens, most of which are searchable online via the USDA Fungal Database. And in spite of the various government funding reductions, a recent $6 million federal grant insures that it will be able to modernize and continue collecting shrooms for all.
That is but one of the national specialized assemblies that are out there. There's the U.S. National Invertebrate Collection containing approximately 50 million specimens of corals, crustaceans, annelids, and parasitic worms. While an independent non-profit, the American Type Culture Collection houses 18,000 living bacterial strains and 4000 cell lines, as well as viruses and protozoa. And the Smithsonian National Wood Collection includes over 43,000 wood specimens and microscopic slides of tree sections.
Besides our national treasures, there are an untold number of highly discriminating hoards amassed by reputable institutions. Each tries to offer a survey of their very particular slice of life in all its forms. While not as extensive as our trove of mushrooms, they are none-the-less selective compendiums which attempt to catalog the vast variety of a given universe.
The University of Connecticut at Storrs is the location of Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry. It owns a collection of more than 2,500 puppets from around the world, along with books, posters, and other puppetry-related media. There's the Kansas Barbed Wire Museum in La Crosse, the "barbed wire capital of the world." There they showcase over 2000 varieties of the "Devil's Rope," as well as the antique tools and equipment used in its manufacturing process. And in Seattle, WA is the Burke Museum's Ichthyology Collection, the largest of its kind in North America. Situated on rolling shelves almost like library books are stack upon stack of fish specimens in glass jars, at last count more than 12 million.
Then there are the more personalized troves that individuals have put together and display for the public. In Davenport, IA curator Cammie Pohl has more than 10,000 spoons, including a "spoondelier" chandelier made of tableware hanging from the ceiling. In Boothbay ME is the Kenneth E. Stoddard Shell Museum, now curated by his son Leo. It includes thousands of samples and is one of the largest private collections in the world, the nucleus of which was collected when the elder Stoddard was a Navy man in WWII and stationed in the South Pacific. And Evanston, IL is the home of Stephen Mullins' American Toby Jug Museum. Tobys originated in the mid-18th century in England, and are loosely defined as pottery jugs crafted and painted into the form of a figure. To date, Mullin has collected over 8000 samples, including both the largest (40 inches tall) and smallest (3/8 inch tall) in the world.
Maybe you have a great collection of concert tee shirts or handbags or Swatch watches. Right now they might be in the closet or basement, stuffed in boxes collecting dust. But pull them out, arrange them nicely, and you might have the start of something big. In my office is a shelf with one of every type of medium for which I've created a program: cassettes, CD's, VHS and more. Tickets and viewing times are still available, just give a call.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford has a large collection of computer cables he needs to curate. His column appears weekly via email and online on Substack and Blogspot as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.
No comments:
Post a Comment