Cool Old Junk - what this is all about (part two)

Part one here

2.Antiques, furniture shops and home decortating magazines. My mum used to be big on antiques. I think it was an 80s/90s country home type thing. We had old cigarette boxes, old tins, ancient furniture and various other bits and pieces throughout the house. My parents would spend lots of time looking at antiques and furniture shops, and I would usually get dragged along. i think being around old stuff so much rubbed off on me, I just like it now. But probably a slightly different stuff to what my parents were into. I love mid century furniture and homewares. The lines, the patterns, the colours and textures, there's something retro but futuristic about it.

When I was in my last year of highschool my parents were looking for a beach house. I remember going along to look at a cute little house in St Leonards. I didnt care one way or the other about the house to be honest, but the furniture inside sold me striaght away. Fully decked out with original mid century furniture and fittings, tables, chairs, couches (even the water heater). I staked a claim on a deep red vinyl couch and hoped theyd decide this was the right place. They did. A few months later that couch sat in my bedroom, covered in clothes, but mine. I think that's where my love affair with old furniture really started.

Since then my collection has grown and is a mix of vintage op shop finds and ikea. I prefer the op shop finds.

3. Art and Design.

I'm a Graphic Designer so school involved learning about art and design history. Design and art are pretty much the same ideas over and over, and newer isnt always better. Look at old logo design compared to the bubble type and table reflection ridden design around now. There was so much care put into old signs, old typography and old layout. Because it was done by hand. It took a long time so you had to do it right.

The same goes with a lot of older products. You can still find out radios and tvs that work fine, ancient chairs that are still solid, old furniture made to take a beating. Everything is made to break now, so you can upgrade in a few years, and upgrade and upgrade and never have any connection to a product. Nothing has any personality.

Older stuff just stands out. It has some kind of warmth and feeling to it that doesnt exist with a lot of products around now. Maybe that's why Eames furniture is still so popular, why lots of vintage furniture holds its value so well, or why whitegoods went through a trend of looking like they were from the 40s/50s 60s. Or how a bunch of radios came out looking like they were made out of bakelite. Lots of that stuff is super tacky, but it says something about consumers. They dont always want new and lifeless. I certainly don't.

The other side of the whole Art/Design reason is that I like collection old books and magazines for reference, or to pull apart and make into new art. I like making collages and art journals and sticking a bunch of found objects I find on a page together. I love found objects like ticket stubs, old photos, postcards etc. And my favourite place to find cool pics to make collages is in old national geographics. I grab old books and mags whenever I can, and usually have trouble parting with them. They might inspire me one day!

Part 3 soon.