Another Take on Stuff

We've all heard the George Carlin take on "Stuff." And even those of us who have been unloading for years have too much of it. Today I visited a small museum of "stuff," which is known as the Amernian Folk Art Museum. This is the kind of thing I have to do alone because I can never get anyone else excited about other people's stuff.

Handmade bedspread with sock and wool carders.

The visit started out on sort of the wrong foot. And it was not their fault, but my own quirkiness. Tell me the entrance price and include everything and I will pay whatever you ask (all-in-one resorts love me). Tell me the entry price but then keep adding fees for taking photos or having a guide, and I can get snarky, The lesson I thought I learned in Toledo when I refused to go to the magnificent cathedral because they charged admission (it was a moral issue for me) apparently did not take. I paid the 500 dram entry fee and said no to photos and a guide.

Carved birds that hold spices and swing out--my favorite!

The holdings are on two floors. I was accompanied by an elderly lady whose job it was to turn on the lights in the room and presumably make sure I did not touch or steal anything. She yawned a lot and tried to fight off sleep.

The collection is labeled minimally, with more facts left out than provided. "Tray" begs for information about where it is from, who might have carved it and when, let alone how this particular type of tray might have been used. The jewelry collection is stunning and labeled simply "women's decoration.".No dates, no explanation of the gems and metals used. Carved wooden spoons and wood salt cellars are beautiful and undated.There is nothing remotely weapon-like. Everything in the collection was made for home or church use.

A room full of exquisite, fine Armenian needlework (NOT crochet) took my breath away. I could imagine the hands that took perhaps years to create some of the large items--tablecloths and bedcovers--and wondered what happened to them.Were these pieces part of a trousseau?
 
A room of carpets and horse blankets stirred up even more questions. Who wove the huge carpet labeled 1901 and what hopes and dreams went into each slide of the shuttle? What hopes and dreams did the buyer bring to this rug? Was it a wedding gift? 

I am reading in quick succession my second book (Chris Bohjalian's The Sandcastle Girls) about the Armenian Genocide. This event, not yet acknowledged by Turkey despite evidence, is usually dated to about 1915, but in truth it started long before in the late 19th Century and lasted well into the 1920s. Over a 1.5 million Armenians were forced from their homes, robbed of their belongings, physically humiliated and murdered or left to die on desert routes out of eastern Turkey between 1915 and 1923 alone. Very few survived the forced marches to Aleppo, Syria.

So I feel a little haunted by this museum and its contents. I picture the women being forced out of their homes with the clothes on their backs, leaving behind the evidence of their connection to others and their everyday lives, how they lived and what they believed was important. History lives through stories. This muted collection holds but cannot tell those stories.