Over the years I have surrounded the living spaces in my home with artifacts and art that I have collected as reminders of the places where I have lived, worked, and travelled. I see them every day; and they bring to mind events I might otherwise have forgotten. They also frame my memories of what I now consider important. These differ from photographs in that they depict what their makers intended rather than what a camera lens captures. Their authors express things about the place where they were made and the styles and fashions of their time. My artifacts and pieces of art also say much about me and what I consider important, my tastes, feelings, and emotions.
Looking back to my childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, I now know that I was not much attached to many things. As a child I did like my bicycle, radio, a few phonograph records and other playthings which briefly attracted my attention. Mainly, though, I was simply living the life of a young, lower middle-class person who grew up during the Great Depression and in the years immediately following World War II. I was thoroughly part of the culture of my family and of an America just before the rapid growth in both a consumer society and personal expectations took off. My concerns were doing well in school, preparing for an independent life, going to college and then into the United States Army, and finally continuing in graduate school, marrying and beginning a profession that would then allow me to live the life for which I had been preparing myself. In this process I accumulated little other than what supported my daily life. I accumulated almost nothing that I wanted to keep but temporarily.
My first thoughts of collecting were very sporadic, the result of moving often as I did field work in Angola and lived successively in Berkeley, Eugene, Vermont, back to Eugene, and then Nigeria and Eugene yet again. Marriage and divorce, family, house payments, and limited salary did not allow for buying many collectibles. A few precious gifts were valued and saved. Only after I retired did I accumulate most of the folk art, fine art and other artifacts that I show and discuss in this book. I have had the opportunity to travel in Latin America and Africa. I have learned to appreciate a few pieces of art and artifacts from China and Japan. And I have come to love and admire painting by artists of the Pacific Northwest, principally those who have lived in Eugene.
My collection is eclectic not systematic. It is what I want to live with. Every piece fills me with joy and memory, making my days always rich. Most pieces remind me of a place in which I lived or travelled. And I can relive the experiences I shared with many friends with whom I associate most of these objects.