The Silver Twin's ...Place...
In New England Decorative Art
Part Six
"Less Noticed"
“Decoration”
(“for decoration”) is that nasty word:
“Salvation”;
the word that saves:
The
salvation of decoration is that it ‘saves’ (preserves).
Or
is it better preserved in one’s mind
(A
mental decoration) (“I know.”)?
I
didn’t set out to find that... kind of crap... out. No... I just scampered... up (at the Silver Twin’s Place)
their tiny stairs to the (door always closed) ‘unfinished’ (attic) “chamber”. Therein I never pondered their iota
that came up hill, was used then “put away” and “left alone” (Part Five): An
obsolete “SPINNING WHEEL”.
You
say. I didn’t bother to call it
that. No: I said “THAT” (I will pay “THAT” amount
of cash right now) “FOR THAT”. And
around we went... in the unfinished chamber. I wasn’t the first one to do this “buy stuff” in that
chamber. No. But:
“GOOD
ENOUGH” I was at it. That
day. With my truck turned around
and pointed down hill and... well “tucked” “in the back” with
“THAT”
Old
“STUFF”.
Did
my frenzy fever abate? At the
bottom of the hill. “Did I” any of
this chamber plunder... even then?
I
sure did. “Yes” because the “no”
was that even then; the whole commercial antiquary sub-tribe already “passed”
“on that” (the old stuff put away and left alone in old Maine Colonial era homestead
shed chamber ‘attics’). Already
they had “saying no” perfected.
From the moment I first found my findings of old ‘left alone’ in old ‘left alone’ attics the “they” “who
buy” only... did not try
To
buy
Any
of my
So
little
“THAT”:
I
was “stuck with” a
Bed
warmer (bed warming pan)
Again.
The
bed warming pan was first noticed by I (my eye) well before that I (eye)
actually looked at one because...
At
every proper old upper-middle and old upper New England Wasp home’s fireplace
setting... one passively noticed this symbolic decoration “hanging there”...
always there... from, yes; childbirth and one’s death... too. Put away. Left alone.
Never disturbed (‘undisturbed’).
It is reported that the expression “born with a silver warming pan in his/her
bed” ***is... too... of the same expressive
history as the still heard ‘silver spoon in mouth’ litany excepting... the
demotion of the former expression due to... “no one knows” what a ‘warming pan’
“is”.
Foremost; a (solid coin) silver
warming pan is quite a find. Good
luck with that for it will not happen.
A large money check may possibly procure a Seventeenth Century English
coin silver “one” but...:
Traditionally... so domestically... in New England... by the fireplace
or ‘in’ the ‘attic’... they (bed warming pans) be either “brass” or “copper”.
And....:
Properly for our discussion... MADE
in ‘old’ (Colonial / Federal) New England. Now I am starting to construct an antiquarian appreciation
platform to stand on? Yes. But I stay with ‘decoration’. That is where it began and/or begins
for each of us... ‘born that way’.
Yes... you have ‘seen this’ you say. “Over there” by the ‘there’ fireplace. It hung there. Always there. How many hundred years does it hang there? All of the hundreds of years “since”
“The
Pilgrims Landed”.
So...
and foremost again... the ‘those’ (bed warmers) of the Seventeenth Century
“CAME” from “ENGLAND” and ‘look different’ than New England made bed
warmers. They have iron handles,
smaller (brass) ember buckets and smaller less well fitting ‘lids’. I will not expostulate upon these
(abundant in the market and derived from many different European countries;
Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, etc.).
It is a ‘taste’ – “class” and ‘decoration’ thing. Simply; one... Wasp... decorates (by
hung by the fireplace) with a New England “American Made” Colonial bed warmer
of fitted brass or copper and with this having too... a traditional (and ‘old
surface’ original) lathe turned wood (maple) handle.
Yes
it is that simple and that nasty.
If one ‘of that’ goes “home” to mother’s house promptly, one may still
be able to ‘purloin’ hers... if it is there. Still. It
usually is. And: You will be the first of your
generation to ‘ask after that’.
IF... it is a ‘she doesn’t have one... GO TO GRANDMOTHER’S house. She did. Does she still?
BETTER HOPE SO. And do not
worry, if Granny is still among the living she will be delighted to ‘find out
you care’ about her
Old
bed warming pan. (“Bed pan”).
This
is not a joke and it is not funny.
There are two readerships at this juncture. Those that ‘know’ and those that ‘don’t know’. That clean a cut. No one is “maybe” with this; the old
New England Wasp fireplace decorative traditional bed warming pan ‘hung
there’. From birth to death. One may go one’s whole life with ‘one
there’ and ‘never touch it’.
Yes. The decoration
standard that is the salvation that preserves the old bed warming pan... in old
New England... is deeply imbedded.
Look around and see (discover) this (them hanging there) for
yourself. And, of course:
HANG
ONE YOURSELF. If you ‘have any
taste’. Real and right ones are
NOT hard to find ‘for sale’ these days.
No one will “ASK” or “MAKE ANYTHING” of it. Most of “THEM” will...
Not
even notice
Your
new decoration.
That
“came down through the family”.
Meaning...: Do I have my
grandmother’s
Old
bed warmer?
Yes
I do.
So
why did the Silver Twins have a bed warmer? Up hill up there in the homestead, used, put away and left
alone. WHERE? Was it. Did they? No...
it never made it to the chamber (“attic”). It was ‘still hanging there’ (by the fireplace). When I bought it. I bought it and took it... back down
the hill... two hundred years after it was brought up the hill and ‘hung
there’. Really: I knowingly did that. You weren’t around to stop me. As usual.
So
why did the Silver Twin’s Place have a bed warmer?
Because
the beds were freezing and they used the bed warmer to
WARM
THEM UP.
Every
night.
All
“winter”
Long
For
decades and
Generations.
Yes. And then ‘it’ ‘stopped’?
Cold
beds never stopped. In Maine.
I
know. I grew up ...in a cold
bedroom with a cold bed. Every
night. It was a toasty hot bed in
my mornings. My water glass ‘was
frozen’ on the table next to me.
But my bed was a healthy hot... when I left it.
It
was a healthy cold that night when I returned. I never used a bed warmer. But I know what they used them for. And why. The bed warmer in my family was always hanging up downstairs
by the fireplace. Always
I
still have it.
It
is still hanging up... by my fireplace.
Additionally... I always have a few around. They never ‘sell out’.
The
bed warming pan is more traditional...
and less noticed... than... the New England Wasp decorative proper of
‘thread bare rugs’. It is more
“just there”. Even more ‘just
there’ than “coin silver spoons”.
Wasp décor always have ‘coin silver spoons’ that are ...almost... ‘less
noticed’ but
Do
get noticed so
The
bed warming pan is... ‘less noticed’.
A
part of ‘less noticed’ you need to know?
IF... I am a “there” in your “there”, I do notice “IT” there or... not
there. There is there... ‘less
noticed’. Not there... is ‘there’
too... especially if my being there is to be there for antiques there that are
said there to be there as... old New England Wasp... antiques... there. If it (the Colonial New England bed
warmer) is not hanging there then...
“Ahhhh....”
the antiques there may too there... not be from
There
Too.
“EASTERN
KENTUCKY” or from “MULE, MISSOURI”... it turns out “they came”. I, of course, say nothing. It’s not my fault they ‘don’t
know’. And show it. I mean: I’m the one who was in the Silver Twin’s Place. These people don’t even know what a
Silver Twin’s Place is. Let alone
that an old New England ‘bed warming pan’ was hanging there.
And
they show that (‘don’t even know’)
To
me.
And
I cannot be snotty. But how am I
going to buy traditional New England Decorative Art from someone who ‘doesn’t
have any’. And doesn’t know it. And shows that
To
me.
There...
and then... (they show me)... while I remember as how once my dust dirty hand
‘lifted off’ the Silver Twin’s bed warming pan from it’s hanging hook... beside
their great... greatest-great... grandmother’s kitchen fireplace;
I
did that... I remember.
“Less
noticed”.
This helps. I am starting to see (understand) that the antique items in an old New England Wasp home can be: authentic in place; part authentic in place and part gathered from elsewhere; all gathered from elsewhere; non-existent.
ReplyDeleteI always thought that they were popcorn poppers...really.
ReplyDelete