Friends, Family and Collecting

A couple of weeks ago, one of my best friends, Phillip, passed away suddenly. We had been close friends for 25 years. The most difficult thing about losing someone close to you is that a part of you is lost as well. All of those shared memories that brought you so close to each other are now yours alone. There is no one left to laugh with over the silly things that the two of you experienced together. It is a terrible loss of love. When I think of my friend Phillip, I am reminded of his outrageous sense of humor.

Phillip had an extraordinary life for someone who died at 52. Right out of high school he worked as a violist, backing up entertainers like Liza Minnelli and Sammy Davis Jr. He knew the gossip on everyone in his area of show business. He traveled around the world with Frank Sinatra playing in his orchestra and even got me tickets to see him at Carnegie Hall. Then, in his thirties he decided to pursue his first interest, medicine. This fellow who just barely graduated high school, started by volunteering at local facilities for the mentally disabled. He got a Bachelor’s degree during the day while working as a musician nights and weekends and volunteering in hospitals during his free time. He enrolled in medical school and graduated with honors. He decided to specialize in psychiatry and had a burgeoning practice at the time of his unexpected death. He lived several lifetimes in the time most live barely one. I never met a person who didn’t love him.

  
Phillip hated majolica. As a joke he once bought me a reproduction of a piece of majolica, but this wasn't just any reproduction. He went out of his way to find what he described as the most over-the-top, hideous, ridiculous, majolica type object he could find.  I will never forget the fiendish glee that overtook him when I opened the gift. He laughed so hard when he saw my blank reaction he was doubled over. What he didn't realize was that the reason I didn't get the joke was because he had given me a reproduction of an actual piece of majolica and not a made up piece. He gave me a poor reproduction of the British Shorter & Boulton triangular owl and fan teapot that he bought at a thrift shop.

Modern reproduction tea pot and sugar

To him it was an absurd modern interpretation of what was worst about majolica.  When I told him it was a fairly accurate reproduction of a real piece of majolica, it confirmed for him how ugly majolica really was. It was an affirmation of his hatred of the stuff.

Shorter & Boulton majolica tea set

Now, I'll admit that Phillip is not the only one of my friends who hates majolica, because practically all of them do. (I can't say all of them because one of my friends has actually grown to like it. I wrote about his turn around here.) Most of them can't understand what I see in it. To them it is everything that was bad about the Victorians: it's garish, old fashioned and ostentatious. They come into my apartment, which is full of the stuff, and totally ignore it–that is when they're not talking about how ugly it is. I'll admit that I wish that at least a couple could appreciate why I like it, but they don't.

The same is not true about my relatives. While none of the younger generation like it, both my sisters and my late mother love it. Mother actually encouraged me to collect it. She saw it as a nice way of getting me to invest my money in something. One of my sisters even started her own collection and now has a much larger collection than I do.  Of course none of her daughters like it but she doesn't care because it brings her joy.

The bottom line is that is my feeling as well. That is why we collect, regardless of what it may be we are collecting. When I look around I feel happy. I have surrounded myself with things that bring me joy and because it does that it has fulfilled its obligation to me. You really can't ask for more.

Actually, I take that back. I can ask for more. I wish I could hear Phillip's laugh again.

Dr. Phillip Reeves (1959-2012)