by Kary Pardy If you’re a nautical fanatic, a coast dweller, or a fan of early American arts, you probably know and appreciate scrimshaw. But what is it really, and how do you know you’re looking at the real deal? If you find it, how do you keep it shipshape for years to come? We’re […]
by Kary Pardy Do You Know Where You’re Going To? In 1714, the British Parliament established the Longitude Act, and with it, the Longitude Rewards. Equivalent to just over a million dollars today, these prizes offered rewards to any who could come up with a reliable way to measure longitude at sea. Latitude was […]
by Kary Pardy Knitting is everywhere recently. Creating warm hats, scarves, wraps, sweaters, and mittens is currently a fashionable pastime for people of all ages, and skilled knitters can create art with their complex stitches and colors. When you ask people in 2020 what knitting is to them, you’re likely to get answers like “it’s […]
Looking into the Colorful Past of Stained Glass Art by Kary Pardy Stirring scenes, epiphanies of light, color and symbolism, glowing recreations of nature – you may connect all these ideas with the artistry of stained glass, but what about urine? Wine? Terms like “cames,” “grozing,” or “armatures?” We know stained glass today as […]
Using Technology to Keep your Antiques Safe By Kary Pardy In 2014, Harvard University unveiled newly “restored” Mark Rothko murals. The paintings had been locked away after previously hanging on the sunny wall of the dining hall from 1962-1979 and had been considerably faded. Many thought they would remain so because Rothko’s special paint formulations […]
No Matter Which Direction the Wind Blows, We Still Love American Weathervanes By Kary Pardy If you are an Americana collector, you are likely familiar with the gold (or copper) standard for American folk art. Handmade American weathervanes are the celebrities of Americana auctions, racking in significantly higher amounts than their wooden and iron contemporaries. […]
by Kary Pardy Related posts: Coasting into Childhood on Vintage Wooden Sleds The Hupmobile: A Journey Through Time From Stem to Stern: A Brief Survey of Wooden Canoe Collecting Exploring Antique Technologies: February 2020 The Hudson Highway As the World Turns On Its Wooden Axis
Exploring Antique Technologies by Kary Pardy Most of us in snowy climates have fond memories of racing downhill on sleds, and these memories are not unique to our generation. Americans have been searching for worthy hills since before the American Revolution. Apart from a few notable fashion differences, children racing down the hills of Boston […]
Exploring Antique Technologies by Kary Pardy Peabody Essex Museum Russell W. Knight Curator of Maritime Art and History, Daniel Finamore, appears on the museums’ webpage to discuss the appeal of the sea. He argues, “the concept of voyaging is, I think, pretty universally understood and desirable today. It is dangerous, but it is also alluring, […]
Exploring Antique Technologies by Kary Pardy It’s no accident that when we think of ephemera, we think of printed materials. Paper, though powerful as a vessel for art and the written word, is not prized for its durability. The very makeup of paper involves breaking other substances down to reshape them into something thin and […]
