Wesley Huang

Collecting
10-15-14
Why do we Collect?

Forget the baseball cards and the stamps. Think about the man who has nearly
every species of cactus and the woman who picks up empty bottles to deliver to the
recycling center. The exquisiteness of finding each distinct form of cactus and the time
and effort to amass each plastic bottle should put both of these activities on the same
plane as collecting baseball cards or stamps. Connotatively, the act of collecting seems
to be reserved for certain physical objects such as types of rocks or exotic animals; as
society forgets the implicit individualization in collecting. History suggests that collecting
is part of human nature and that each individual does some form of collecting, whether
it is collecting tangible or intangible objects. Humans collect for personal reasons,
ranging from pathological hoarding to rational, everyday gathering that offers personal
satisfaction. Each collection is created for a different reason which is sometimes known
only to the person who created it. However, whatever the motivation, collections are
amassed by people because they satisfy mans need for completion.
Humans have always felt a need to collect objects or artifacts to try to
complete oneself. Hunters and foragers gathered berries and hunted meat, and saved
natural materials to make tools. Egyptian pharaohs accumulated gold and precious
jewels to be buried with them in their great pyramids. Roman citizens collected Greek
Wesley Huang
Collecting
10-15-14
statues and its government collected taxes from its people. Catholic churches during
the Middle Ages compiled religious artifacts such as the stones that Jesus stood on
during the Ascension or splinters from the Cross. Nobles during the Renaissance
treasured the arts and filled their houses with Leonardos and Titians.
All of these are concrete items, which are supported by novelist G. Thomas
Tanselles definition of collecting as the accumulation of tangible things (Tanselle, p.
1). This definition allows those in the lower social classes to be covered in the umbrella
of collecting as there is no need to collect exotic animals or Raphael paintings to be
known as a collector. Collecting as an action now overcomes socioeconomic boundaries
and cultural lines. While this may seem that collecting has become universalized, it
allows ordinary people to feel some personal pride in their collecting.
Yet one may argue that storing memories and experiences in the mind deserve
the same recognition as collecting physical objects. Tanselle claims that the difference
between thoughts and objects is that one is an internal repertoire of ideas and the
other an external grouping of tangible materials (Tanselle, p. 4). Therefore, according
to Tanselle, it appears reasonable to exclude mental repertories from our definition of
a collection (Tanselle, p.4). The author makes some sensible arguments to exclude
mental collection from what constitutes a collection, but without mental accumulation
of experiences or memories, collecting physical objects would have no connection to
personal feeling. The physical act of collecting is not what makes the collecting
Wesley Huang
Collecting
10-15-14
distinctive to a person but rather the psychological and emotional effects evoked from
the act make the collecting distinctive. Therefore, the classification of collecting should
include tangible items in addition to accumulating intangible items.
The human need to collect stems from the desire to feel complete, to feel as if
they are making their contribution to the material world. Collecting allows one to
express ones interests. Stamp collecting, for example, happens because the person
enjoys the many different kinds of stamps, or he likes the texture and feel of stamps or
even perhaps he wants the stamps for the eventual monetary value. It does not matter
the reason for a person to collect stamps; it is unique and personal to the person
himself, helping to complete ones identity.
Another part of the process of finding a sense of completion is found in natural
human curiosity. Whenever one collects an object, he takes it out of its immediate
context and places it in another status significant to the collector. Taking a vase for
example and using it as an aesthetic exhibition instead of its use as a liquid container
changes the treatment of the object, giving it a new meaning and idea. It allows the
object to tell the story of its life (Tanselle, 11). This changing of the objects purpose
occurs because human inquisitiveness questions the validity of each objects function.
This curiosity creates the catalyst for making a collection especially unique and personal
to the collector.
Wesley Huang
Collecting
10-15-14
The next logical step to self-fulfillment naturally becomes understanding the
purpose and the need of ones collecting. There lies an intricate relationship between
the collected object and the collector himself. It may be simple for a person collecting
water bottles; the person needs or wants to do it for the financial benefit that may
occur. For a person who acquires art statues, a more complex relationship occurs. For
some, the intimate sentiment that comes from studying art creates a closer tie with the
collection, while for others a need for higher social standing explains the craving for art
statues. At the other end of the spectrum, collecting intangible objects such as
memories or thoughts gives a deeper sense of the human desire to understand. While a
physical collection can be picked apart and studied from all angles, a memory requires
personal inner strength and thought to truly understand the memory. A person can
search through the plethora of memories in the mind and choose one he wants to
comprehend. Making sense of these memories accomplishes a step in making the
person feel whole in both mind and body.
Collecting has a unique place in creating humanitys variety of distinctive
characters and peoples. Since the dawn of time, humans have felt a need and necessity
to collect, from physical survival items to visual artistic objects to basic articles turned
collection and even the collection of intangible objects such as recollections and
thoughts. Without collecting, humanity would have lacked the crucial action that allows
each individual to attain its own completion.
Wesley Huang
Collecting
10-15-14




Bibliography

1. Tanselle, T. A Rationale of Collecting, Studies in Bibliography 1998.
Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia. Print.


Read by GAF: Alice Tessen