A few years back my KOVEL”S ANTIQUE COLLECTOR’S NEWSLETTER told of a study at the University of Iowa which indicated that collectors have damaged frontal lobes.
Actually, I think the study focused on folks who save decades of empty cereal boxes, plastic refrigerator dishes, and stacks of newspapers. Those of us who collect English teapots, Teddy bears, and vintage kitchen kitsch may be exempt from such a dire (and seemingly ridiculous) judgment.
Nonetheless, those of us who do enjoy our collections find the “damaged frontal lobe” diagnosis to be hilarious. If we are “damaged”, so be it. We are contented, adventuresome, and never bored!
Environment may play a part in our hobbies and activities, but genes are also involved. My parents were collectors. However, their tastes were a bit more limited (and perhaps more refined?) than mine. I have taken the gene thing to a new level.
One of my nephews and a daughter share the collector’s gene with me—as well as at least one granddaughter. More grandchildren may surface as they become mature adults. Even I was once a minimalist, until something snapped in my early thirties and I never looked back! It takes maturity to discover exactly whom we are and what rings our chimes!
Another, similar gene has been passed down in my family: the passion for creating way out, funky stuff. The Brits, who love to turn verbs into adjectives, call people like us, “makey”. Would the “experts” at the U. of Iowa determine that we eccentric makeys have damaged frontal lobes as well? It seems that collecting and eclectic creating are related, at least in my experience!
The first truly makey person I know of in my family was my Aunt Lois, although there must have been pioneers before her. Aunt Lois was born in 1900. I’ve blogged about her before, and I probably will again as she was a true mover and shaker in my life. I think of her nearly every day!
Lois’s funky spirit first went on display when her husband taught at Berea College in Kentucky, and she immersed herself in mountain arts and crafts. From there, Lois and her husband moved to California. Need I say more than that?
I only saw Lois a few times in my life, in the 1930s and 40s, when she would return to Wisconsin for a visit and breeze in wearing the most interesting hand-made costumes. Maya Angelou has called such garb “get-ups”. My Aunt Lois was the Queen of the Get-ups.
I found Lois to be inspiring and wonderful.—not only her shawls, capes, and hats, but her entire persona. She was full of smiles and excited descriptions of whatever craft she was into at the time. She eschewed patterns and rules in her art. Lois was an original. Although not a hippie in lifestyle, she had that free creative spirit which would explode in wild, wonderful color generations later—the very wild, wonderful color that permeates my life and home.
I’m pleased to carry the Lois gene, and I have a niece in Colorado who has the gene as well. I don’t think my niece ever met Lois, but the makey stamp is there—plain as the words I’m keyboarding at this very moment.
Among many other skills, my niece is a decoupage artist. Here is a sample of her work, photographed in her Western home:
It just occurred to me that the makey gene has been passed from aunt to niece, and then again from aunt to niece. I wonder what Aunt Lois’s aunt was like! I’d like to see an MRI image of her frontal lobes!
Margaret L. Been, ©2011
The Messy Palette . . . 
