Ethnic Cottage Decor: COLLECTIONS & CABINETS OF CURIOSITIES

The hobby of collecting includes seeking, acquiring, organizing, displaying, storing and maintaining whatever items are of interest to the individual collector. I love to see a collection in a home even if it's something I couldn't care less about for these two reasons: it tells me somethings about the person collecting and they get joy out it! The joy may come in the search ('the joy is in the journey'), the acquisition, or the display for the enjoyment of yourself and others. For this blog, I hope to inspire you to start a collection of your own or show you some inspiring ways to display in your ethnic cottage decor. Things to collect are as varied and interesting as people are different. There are the standard historical collections of stamps, seashells, books, fishing flies, baseball cards, even rocks - which can be very beautiful!

Jay Leno has his cars, Britney and Demi Moore dolls, Tom Hanks his typewriters (see collection below) & Keifer Sutherland has a collection of over 30 classic Gibson guitars. Dan Akroyd collects police badges, Ellen Burstyn antiques and rapper Biz Markie collects Barbies. Yes, Barbies. Frank Sinatra collected model trains, Ben Stiller has a Star Trek collection, Elton John's photographs have been in museums and Dick Clark collected...music memorabilia of course. Queen Elizabeth I had a fashion fetish - she collected over 2,000 pairs of gloves! Dr. Seuss had over 200 hats. Not only do I love his fun and wise words but I too collect hats - vintage ladies' hats. Way too many! This is interesting info in that it tells us something about the collector.

There are people who just don't have the Collecting Gene, who consider it all as some sort of madness and the collection a dust magnet. As they say in the South, bless their hearts. As Mr. T said, I pity the fool! It can be such fun and it can cost only as much as you have to spend. A collection of, say, feathers or rocks could be free. A collection of rare books, art or antique furniture could really cost you some money. The WHY people collect can have varied and complex reasons. We'll save that for a psychological blog that can get into our subconscious as well as take on the hot topic of hoarding! And we won't get into the really weird stuff people collect (navel lint, anyone?) because frankly, some of it can just be gross.

Some may say Cabinets of Curiosities are gross or strange. I disagree and find the antique ones fascinating. For the uninitiated, cabinets of curiosities were originally an encyclopedic collection in Renaissance Europe of various objects typically found in nature. They were also known as Cabinets of Wonder. Cabinets of curiosities would often serve scientific advancement when images of their contents were published. This painting reveals a corner of a cabinet in 1636: