How old fashioned a notion about a woman’s worth, but once it was seen as a fact sanctioned by society and accepted by some women themselves. I see the tangible expressions of that axiom on the…
Month: March 2012
This time, the woman pirate was standing alone at the auction house. The week before she had towered over the Blues Brothers, replicas of the famous movie characters who had been immortalized in plaster. Someone…
A straw doll with a Talbot Brothers tag
Posted in Music
I was sorting through a box lot of small dolls I had just bought at auction when I came across a straw figure wearing what looked like an ice cream spoon around its neck. The…
A sexy red Ford T-bird convertible
Posted in Vehicles
When I walked through the auction house door, all I could see to my right was red and chrome. The metallic finish of the car sparkled under the overhead lights, and I could see myself letting…
A shout-out to women on their very own month
Posted in African American women, Art, Black history, Books, Civil War, Cooking, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and slavery
I was reading an email a few days ago that reminded me that this month was Women’s History Month. Why are people whom society considers marginal given a small piece of the year to spotlight their…
The pain of selling a relative’s estate
Posted in Death, Family, Home, and Personal items
The woman watched as the auctioneer directed bidders to a burgundy leather recliner on the porch of the man’s home. We were standing in the living room and a few of us glanced toward the…
Doll memories that last forever
Posted in Dolls
The woman’s vision was as vivid as the day she walked into the museum in San Francisco and happened upon the room: “In the museum one of the rooms had a display of an antique…
Jumping for joy with Duke Ellington
Posted in Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and Music
I was perusing the catalog at Swann Auction Galleries recently when I came across a photo of Duke Ellington and his band, all handsome and stylishly dressed in heavy overcoats on what was apparently a cold…