Remembered Things

There is something about old things that has always pulled me in.

Not necessarily valuable things. Not perfect antiques or things that belong behind glass. I mean the things that have been used. The things with scratches, worn edges, faded finishes, tarnished metal, chipped paint, and little signs that tell you someone had them before you.

Whenever I find a special piece, I can't help but wonder where it has been.

Was it a treasured heirloom handed down through a family? Did it sit on someone's dresser for forty years? Was it a wedding gift? Did somebody's grandmother keep it on a shelf? Or was it simply an ordinary object that quietly existed in the background of someone's life until one day nobody wanted it anymore?

I'll probably never know.

And maybe that's part of what I love about them.

I think I've always been this way. Even as a child, I collected old things. Antique teacups and saucers, salt and pepper shakers, old fans, dolls and whatever else caught my eye. I still even have my grandparent’s old movie projector complete with old reel films. I just thought they were beautiful. There was something about things from another time that fascinated me, even then. I loved looking at them and wondering how old they were, where they'd been and who might have owned them before me.

Old objects have already had a life before they ever reach my hands. They carry a history I can't see and stories I will never completely know. There is something mysterious about that, but there is also something very human about it.

We leave pieces of ourselves everywhere.

In the things we use. The things we keep. The things we give away.

Even the things we eventually forget.

The ancient Greeks had a goddess named Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory and the mother of the nine Muses. I love the idea that memory itself was important enough to be given a divine presence. Before there could be poetry, history, music or story, there had to be memory.

That idea feels very connected to what I do with these old pieces. I may not know their actual memories or the people who once owned them, but I can recognize that they had a life before they came to me. Reclaiming them isn't about pretending that history never happened. It's about letting some evidence of that past remain while giving the piece a new purpose.

Maybe that's part of why reclamation means so much to me.

When I bring home an old piece, my first instinct isn't to make it look brand new. In fact, I usually don't want it to look new at all.

I clean it. I repair what needs repairing. Sometimes I paint it, darken it, gild a few worn edges or add something completely unexpected. Moss, dried flowers, old keys, bells, lace, crystals, herbs, bits of paper, forgotten little objects I've collected along the way.

Slowly, it starts telling me what it wants to become.

That's probably the part of creating that I love most.

I don't usually begin knowing exactly where I'm going. I might have an idea, but the piece tends to change that idea somewhere along the way. Something doesn't look right. Something else suddenly does. I add something, take something away, walk past it twenty times, stare at it from across the room and eventually realize what it has been missing.

And somewhere in that process, it becomes unmistakably Iron Vixen.

But I don't think its first life disappears.

I don't want it to.

The scratches underneath are still there. The old metal is still old. The wood has still been handled by people I'll never meet. Whatever history that object carried into my hands is still part of it.

I've simply added another chapter.

One of my favorite things to do, when I'm able to, happens after the piece is finished.

If I bought it directly from someone and I still have a way to contact them, I love sending them a picture of what their old piece became after I've cleaned it up and Iron Vixenized it.

Their reactions are some of the best.

People are often genuinely happy to see it. Sometimes surprised. Sometimes they tell me a little more about where it came from or how long they had it. And I love that.

Because for a moment, the old story and the new one get to meet.

That is what reclamation has come to mean to me.

It isn't erasing what something was.

It isn't making an old thing look new.

And it isn't pretending every old object is some priceless antique with a grand history.

It's simply recognizing that something can have value even after its original purpose has ended.

Maybe that's why I have such a hard time walking past the strange little piece sitting by itself at an estate sale, flea market or thrift store. 😂

I can already see what it might be.

There is a particular kind of magic in taking something overlooked and choosing to look again.

To wonder where it came from.

To honor the marks it picked up along the way.

And then to give it another chance to be treasured.

Not everything old needs to be restored to what it was. Some things are just waiting to be given new life.

Until next time,

Lisa

Iron Vixen Herbal Co.