Chapter 2: A Bronze Goddess Comes Knocking

Like a moth to a flame, that is me to a brass object. Any brass object. Even something that looks entirely useless. Every stack of books on my coffee table in Athens has a brass object on top of it, and brass objects lie in between the stacks. Serpents, a mouse, a nutcracker (or two), grape scissors, the list is endless.

Like a moth to a flame am I to a brass object. 

Growing up in a small New England town, I was dragged to flea markets, and Sunday mornings were usually spent “going up the field” to see my Great Aunt Mary and her wares. She was an early American antique dealer. Shaker furniture. Oil lamps of every shape and provenance. Her house was a museum. Every item in the house was period, save for my Great Uncle Roy’s easy chair. So my “eye” started early, and when it’s 6am and you’re six years old, your “eye” goes to shiny things in what can be perceived as a sea of Sunday morning junk. So it’s no wonder, that four decades later, my trained eye still goes to shiny things. Yet today they aren’t too shiny. They usually have a slight patina, and I envision what the object was used for, who held it, and what story it told. These doorknobs spoke to me in a market in Athens, and the original set still live in my apartment in the center of the city. They made their way into Anthologist’s first collection, and they also proudly mark the entrance to Kallisti Paros, a hotel I conceptualized and sourced objects for this past summer. Demetra is as lovely as a decorative doorknob on your front door as she is sitting on a pile of beautiful books.