Old New England Glassware in the Home
Part Twelve
"Goofy"
Now
that I have disemboweled old glassware in the New England home by using the
tiny jewel of the earliest innovation forms of New England ‘invented’ ‘pressed
glass’ found in that home as a design creation that ‘changed’ ‘things’ glass
... in the New England home... AND
Demonstrated
without direct pointed finger that most all of the ‘that’ is LOST on... ‘most
of all THAT’ (the ‘them’); a ‘walking dead’ of ZERO design sense in the THEIR
“NEW” ‘old’ NEW ENGLAND home... ah....
THAT’S
RIGHT: The roads are going in opposite
directions? The juice glass win?
“Noooo”: I’ll link ‘em BACK AROUND with the
always useful
Good
and bad
Taste. Declaration.
I’ll
spread the disemboweled entrails out with my hand as though we are in the...
always fondly remembered... tenth grade ‘biology lab’. I’m your “pair up with the person next
to you” partner... “in lab”? I left off with a:
“I’ll
leave (the term) ‘Lacy’... ‘Glass’ as a stand alone pontification” and... I did
NOT promise to ...pontificate upon it (Part Thirteen B) so... I, having the
established the ‘short bus’ option on the discussion table will ...use that.
Short
Bus Lacy Glass ‘field trip’:
First... the first... New England
glassware is ‘blown’ glassware.
Next the notion of pressing glass metal and the actual production of a
product by doing that; the ‘bases’ of ...old New England whale oil lamps is
...accomplished... noting again the ‘it is a crude product’, these early
‘pressed glass lamp bases’.
Improvement... in name only... refine both the pressing process and mold
making. The glass metal; the
molten glass... remains ‘difficult’ as a ...molten material. Yeah; that’s right: ‘Difficult’.
So
they (glass men in the back room with rum ration) are trying to ‘control’ this
metal... that is... for the pressing process ...of small (tiny) iota... like
glass knobs for drawers on furniture and... cup plates... salt dishes: They are TRYING TO... do this; press
the glass in a mold. No one knows
what they are doing.
“Wing
it”.
So
each little baby step... confined mostly to mold making and tiny iota object
design innovation with a ‘that stuff is hot bitch’ metal control thoughts...
rarely carrying to ‘improvement in the glass metal’ gives I... and you... and
the world... the almost fifteen year window of ‘New England Lacy Glass’. It’s the global ‘primitive’ state of
‘Pressed Glass’; the point where pressed glass comes out of the sea of and
walks on land. It, in hindsight
design comparison... looks like this; sea, land, walk.
“Lacy
Glass” is, most mostly, small snowflake shimmering iota of, most all, small and
useless ‘dishes’ for ‘use’ on a (dining) table that... no one ever really knows
what to do with them; stupid little dishes. The 1828 New England diet was nearly two hundred years
behind today’s Asian food influences of ‘dibs and dabs’ of little this and that
‘sauces and stuff’ in tiny table top “OH I LOVE THEM”... dishes... that we
will... actually drive for an in-state-of-Maine HOUR to ‘get to a place’ that
‘serves that’ (sauces and stuff in little dishes; lots of little dishes). I WILL COME BACK TO THIS in later
chapters... including Eve and Bing... so don’t forget this. MEANWHILE... the old New England home
bought up a FEW ‘lacy dishes’ along with A LOT of ‘cup plates’ and a
responsible-for-usage-in-the-home number of... ‘lacy salt dishes’.
Short
bus ride is over. GET OFF THE
BUS. For lacy glass... a cup plate
or two and a lone vigil of a single salt dish... is appropriate and
historically correct old glassware to have in one’s New England home. MORE importantly is for one to have the
GOOD TASTE to ‘know about this’ and that... a that... IS ONE... when one...
‘SEES IT’.
“OH....
GOD.... HELP... ME”.
There
is NO trickle down of this that I have ever denoted in my fifty antiquarian
years. Lacy glass is totally ‘on
the bus’ – ‘off the bus’... in OLD and NEW... New England.
I
couldn’t care less. Especially for
‘lacy’. There just is not a
function trail IN the home to have allowed it to ‘flourish’. The actual productions, for the most
part, are NOT FUNCTIONAL to the 1835 New England home. That includes the furniture knobs. “LIKE: How many you WANT?”
A one box of glass knobs goes... a long ways... in the home. All this just makes it easier for me to
‘enjoy’ the old New England glassware without having the “ANYONE AROUND” and...
THE COST... ‘is nominal’. “Old
Lacy”, the iota... is ‘dirt cheap’.
I think it is even cheaper than that (‘dirt’; check with your landscaping
service). What that means is
...watch out... when I come back to ‘this’ as forewarned above.
I
want to touch on two ‘things’ (objects; object types) ‘of lacy glass’ that are
sort of ...neat. Sort of
‘cool’. Sort of goofy. They are ‘tids’ that one should
fit with one’s ‘tads’ of this ‘lacy glass’... as old New England glassware in the
home.
AS
I HAVE harped on; lacy appears as ‘iota’ and has little function and
purpose. SO THERE... in this there
of iota made... is a round-up of ... rather deep collector delight... in the
production products called “miniatures” and “toys”. Oddly, the ‘they’ (pressed glass makers) DID make ‘a lot’ of
them (these) and... AND, today, ‘collectors’ covet ‘them’...especially ‘of
color’. Little bowls, plates,
covered dishes, spooners, pitchers in bowls, doll juice glasses and even...
teeny tiny flat irons... were made as token ‘for children’ give-aways and
Collectors
‘love them’. Especially ‘of
color’.
And
oddly, from my ‘in (old New England) house’ working experience... these
...teeny tiny miniature iota are IN THE DAMN HOUSES: I find them... not quite an ‘all the time’ but... way more
than ‘you’d think’. It’s actually
easy to explain: The kid got it
gifted and... like... it’s too small to smash and so... it survived
‘childhood’... and otherwise... never went anywhere else so stayed THERE in the
‘undisturbed’ old New England home ... house contents... until some
MAD
MAN like me...
Hunts
it down...
In
micro seconds
While
saying nothing
About
it
To
anyone
At
all.
So
those are sort of cool and one should know about them; “Sandwich miniatures” by
generic collector title... often
proceeded by “I COLLECT” and followed by “especially colored ones GOT
ANY?”. Ok... what’s better? FINDING ONE in the dark back third
floor child’s bedroom of the old sea captain’s mansion or... COLLECTING...
ONE? BUT a “YOU” of an old New
England home... WILL BE SO VERY on top of it IF ONE knowingly includes a ‘one
or two or it-is-hard-to-stop-at-THREE’... in one’s... proper and of good taste
gathering of
GLASSWARE
In the New England home.
After
practicing this mantra; “It is a Sandwich (glass) miniature”, casually
displaying-without-appearing-to-display the “your” lacy salt dish and... “Those are CUP... PLATES... from...
my... FAMILY”; a stack of those too... we will have ‘of good taste’ you to be
that... ‘of good taste’... WITH TOO... a ‘they collect all this’ (old New
England glassware)... flying buttress... supporting your
old-glassware-in-the-New England –home cathedral YOU have built. What does a ‘they collect’ buttress
look like?
A
premier example is the ‘collector’s reference book for “Pressed Glass Salt
Dishes of the Lacy Period 1824-1840”.
I mean the premier, long established... “BIBLE”... of... collector books
for... “Lacy Salt Dishes” It is
goofier than the ...goofy... salt dishes.
“NEAL”
being how this tome is referred to by collectors... (a short for the authors’
“L. W.” and “D. B.” with the “D... B...
NEAL” being “QUEEN”... is a HEAVY... dense... 1962... privately
printed... of no use to anyone for any reason unless YOU are ‘interested in’...
LACY... Salt... DISHES. Otherwise
‘not’ and ‘never’ on a ‘any reading list’. I was the “USING” “NEAL” by, like... 1968. I bought the still-have-my (traveled
and storied) copy for $95.00 on August 10th, 1972. I...
STILL
USE IT
HAVE
HAD MANY ‘copies’ come and go’ and
STILL
USE IT
As
a core communication forum between I and collector Who Ever I
STILL
USE IT.
With
this bitch slap (“STILL USE IT) portraying its integral necessity on ‘in my
(antiquarian) life’ but these slaps... do not treat
“GOOFY”.
OK
if your sitting down in your preferred chair ‘using Neal’ you are... probably
pretty somewhere of pretty in there about something literally in there (NEAL)
being something ...you there... need to find in there to show to someone who
very much cares that it is in there so, too, would sit there and look too to
see that it is, as you say, IN THERE and
This
is communicated by I finding in there the head title here sought to be
“OP Ia” (OH-pee-one-A)
And
say that
Then
add that “the color is not recorded”.
“Oh
shit” is what Bing said when they opened the bottom door to the buffet and
discovered that a ‘whole shelf’ of ‘glass’ (glassware) “HAS FALLEN”. HERE in that dining room I had “Please
come” to “MEET” a woman who had scared the “oh shit” out of ME when I had
‘shelf fallen myself’ been admitted to MEET her and
She
was from Texas.
I
mean...for real.
And
she was wearing this professional all black pant suit ish thing with the starch
crisp white collar white shirt thing with black spike heal ‘expensive’ shoes...
thing... too; Dyed (died?) blond
hair with dark brown roots showing too white teeth all gold very carefully hung
and too smile-ing with her sharp polished nails attached to a Texan girl handshake
that ...crushed me.
“Texas?”
I said as self reflexive.
“Houston”.
“Oh...
nice”.
If
that is what is coming... then that explains why I savor sitting in my
preferred chair ‘with Neal’.
The... ah... ‘pictures’ in Neal are ‘line drawing’ drawn from actual
plaster cast molds... made of each and every ‘salt’ ‘in the book’. Front-back, sides, bottom. The Neal identification number is at
the top of each page. The skimpy
‘maker’ and ‘known colors’ are at the page bottom. If ‘that one’ on ‘that page’ is not the one “I HAVE” then I
Turn
the page.
I take "Goofy" as a positive connotation for the "lacy glass miniatures", just as I call the final cut biscuit a "Goofy", you know it's re-rolled from the left over dough strands and once baked looks "Goofy" in shape, yet I always eat it first since to me it tates better than the other "symmetrical" biscuits, it is a unique "design creation".
ReplyDeleteThe "Translucent Blue Basket-type Pomade Jar"...the sale receipt from D.B. Neal...the "Neal" book...the art, the craft, the history...IF ONLY...YEARS AGO...I HAD KNOWN...SUCH THINGS.
ReplyDelete