American Picking and Musin

Watching AM Pick on Netflix, and taking notes for my paper. Thinking of my other papers on Sara Crewe and Rumer Godden. Sarah pays her debts by paying it forward. I have had lots of chances to muse about collecting and its nature. One comment made by critics on Am Pick is that the collectors there like to express themselves individually; they don't want to live where, or how, te McMansion people live. They don't want to simplify their lives, and their collections define that. Some build tunnels and create art, others flaunt societal norms as judbges and lawyers bymoving their collecitons just outside city limits. Most aren't taht poor; they know what tey have. Wis they could ave helped that poor woman with er odll collectionson Hr***drs. I hate that show. What is the future of collecting? One more reason dolls are important in the istory of play is that cildren don't seem to play with them or form bonds iwth tjem as muc. They play electornic games and they play soccer and T-ball, and little league. Children have playd ates and the toys juwst acceorize them. they are more into kiddie lingerie and fasions. Even boys are label conscious. Dolls will be true artifacts, soon, examplesof a history lost. Even the played with examples need to be cherished. Then, there is the high end/low end debate. Doll prices have become, in the words of my late friend M. Hillier "madness." I woudl say obscene, and I can afford to buy someo f the pricer one,s sometimes. :) You are not repspected as a "serious" collectgor unless like one woman in Dallas, wo is relatively new to the game, you can average $10,000 per doll. Boring, I say. But, let me pose the riddle I posed to a friend of mine. Dos an expert in Leonardo Da Vinci own a Da Vinci? Probably not. She studies Leonardo, wrteis of him, studies in museums and galleries, has reproductions, and can maybe afford a minor maestro of the period. The fact that she isn't Bill Gates who can buy the tirty milliion dollar Leonardo notebook because he can does not make her any less an expert. Food for thought, oh high end doll snobs among us! We are played on for our emotions; the passion of the collector, acquisitivenss, the pride of ownership, and dolls are our other, they look like us. They are made in our image. As collecgtors, we have been called the most emotional of all collectors. Maybe. And, those emotions get played on.