As the mother of a tchotchke lover, I knew that I was going to attend our shul’s Pre-owned Art and Collectibles Auction as soon as I heard about the event. My youngest daughter has been a knick-knack collector since toddlerhood; as a three-year-old she became obsessed with holding a smiley-faced eraser in each fist everywhere she went.
We thought, mistakenly, that once she lost the erasers she would fixate on something else, but that didn’t happen. She had named the little circular erasers “Francines,” and as soon as she lost them, she wanted them back. We were still just getting to know our little girl’s personality, and so we underestimated her stubbornness and only bought a few more erasers, figuring that the phase would be over soon. But it wasn’t over then, and it wouldn’t be over for a really long time, prompting us to buy Francines in mega-sized packages in order to maintain the serenity in our home.
Later, she would collect other things, Beanie Babies and tiny dolls, tiny anything, really – anything that she could tote around in her little hands until the next best thing came along. When she moved out to go to school, she left her childhood room intact. Aside from being a collector, she is also an empath, her tender feelings extending even to the inanimate, which makes it hard for her to throw things away.
Her penchant for collecting runs in the family; my personal weaknesses are books and yarn. The word “hoarder” has been mumbled in my presence, but I like to refer to myself as a “curator.” My mother is also a collector but because she has more expensive tastes, she tends to admire from afar. She loves things like fine china, upscale household trinkets, and delicate jewelry; much to her disappointment, we do not have this in common. The only time I break this rule is if it is a family heirloom or has a really good backstory. This explains the schmaltzy velvet-covered lamp in the corner of my dining room that is encrusted with enormous fake jewels and belonged to my grandmother.
Our family arrived first to the art event which was held in the shul’s social hall. The artwork lined the walls on all four sides, leaving a large space in the center of the room. The collection ran the gamut from beautiful to boring to eclectic to downright weird. In first place for the latter category was a painting of a man in a golden brown cloak with a tall red hat and a polished walking stick. The portrait radiated a vaguely menacing aura which was further enhanced by the thick ornate frame that looked like it belonged in a Russian palace. I named him Rasputin and tried to avoid his creepy gaze. All of the paintings were donations from people who had made aliyah or were downsizing, or more poignantly, were from the collections of those who had passed on.
I felt them then, the ghosts in the room. Whether awakened by the sounds of our voices or by the change in scenery, I cannot say. But I felt their presence next to me, filling the large room with a loneliness born of neglect.
I wanted to bring all of those abandoned paintings home.
Unfortunately, due to torrential rainstorms the auction was not as well attended as anticipated, so the event turned into a sale. My hunter-gatherer genes were instantly activated and I pounced on the table that displayed the tchotchkes like a saber-toothed tiger happening upon a fresh piece of meat.
My older daughter, who was also at the event, quickly claimed a miniature vase that was hand-painted with a delicate floral pattern, a vase that was totally nonfunctional and would maybe hold the tiniest of flowers; essentially useless. A tchotchke indeed.
I probably could have scooped up the rest of the tables’ contents and bought them for my younger daughter, but I went through the motions of deliberation, lifting each item and holding it up to the light, turning them all individually to check for chips and defects, and if possible, trying to figure out where they were from and if they actually had any value. Reluctant to make a unilateral decision, I decided to FaceTime her, and I began the awkward task of trying to get the phone’s camera to zoom in on the contents of the table.
She was charmed, as I knew she would be, by a quartet of delicate teacups hand painted with flowers and an oriental motif that matched the little vase her sister had chosen. After selecting a few more things from that area, we shifted over to the next table where there were some tarnished pieces of silver. She honed in instantly on a kiddush cup set, the type that has a large cup on top that drains into eight smaller cups. It was screaming for some tender loving care, at the very least a good cleaning and a couple of screwdriver twists to make it stop jiggling. We found out that it wasn’t silver, just silver-plated, but more importantly, that it had belonged to our friend’s mother. It wasn’t an heirloom by any means, but the fact that its provenance was known made it special for my daughter and we added it to the pile.
As I circled the perimeter of the room, hunting for buried treasure, I wondered what lives these paintings had led before they ended up here. Were they unwanted gifts, now being foisted off on someone else, destined to sit in yet another basement until some life-changing event carried them elsewhere? Or were they beloved members of a family, a family that now no longer existed, a family whose home had been systematically dismantled, its contents scattered and untethered, now yearning for someplace to call home?
The day after the sale I began the painstaking process of polishing the kiddush cups. They would never look like new, but at least the patina of neglect was gone. I poured water into the little reservoir and was gratified to see it flowing into all eight little cups. Using a soft, damp cloth, I wiped down all of our other newfound treasures and sent my daughter a video to show her how nice everything looked.
The next Shabbos, I found out from my brother-in-law that we were distantly related to an older couple in town who had just passed away – first the wife, and then, a month later, the husband. Before her death, this newly discovered cousin had donated some of her Judaic prints to the sale, but they had been set aside as raffle prizes and were not yet available for purchase when I had been there the week before. Although I really didn’t know this family well, it was impossible not to be personally affected by this double loss, and now that I knew we were family of sorts, I also knew that I had to own one of her prints. Luckily, the sale was ongoing and I bought a pretty gold framed print of the tefillah women say after lighting Shabbos candles from her collection. Although it’s not quite on the same sentimental level as a lamp inherited from a beloved grandmother, it has a good backstory, and that’s enough to make it special.
My daughter hung up the eclectic Eishes Chayil print we bought for her on the wall of her apartment and sent us a photo. It looks perfect there, and I wish that its original owner could somehow know that it’s happy now in its new location.
Rasputin continued to be a topic of interest until finally my daughter did a reverse Google image search and found out that it was a reproduction of a Rembrandt fittingly named “The Old Man With the Red Cap.” I’m not sure how much longer the unsold paintings are going to be living in our shul, but I’ll be sad to see them leave. I heard they were going to be donated elsewhere and I’m hoping that eventually they all end up in good homes, even Rasputin.
