A Curator of Love

I’m a collector. A curator of love.

It started when I was young, and we’d go on vacations. Each time, we’d stop at souvenir shops and purchase some knick-knack. I’d walk through the aisles, careful not to bump into the shelves.

Souvenir shops were designed to trap tourists. The owners knew just how to place the items to garner interest from one thing to the next, building the excitement of owning one or more of their wares.

The miniature China animal sets drew me. Usually, they consisted of an adult and two itty-bitty babies, all connected by the most delicate of chains. Sometimes, these came attached to a tiny mirror, perfect to set on a little girl’s dresser to add sparkle to her days. I collected quite a few over the years. Many of mine made it onto the curio shelves of my first home with my husband.

At other places, I’d ogle the cedar boxes – you know the ones. Small enough to hold a few trinkets a child wants to hide, or the love notes a teen received from her first love, or even as a holding spot for birth certificates when a new mom brings her infant home from the hospital. And the number of choices! Did I want the one with the raccoon peaking out from a tree? How about the majestic black stallion, just like the ones in my books? Regardless, I usually went home with one each visit.

How much is too much?

Of course, collections have a way of growing out of control. Our youngest daughter collected decks of playing cards. Some with favorite cartoon characters on their backs and others with famous places. She had shaped ones, including a round deck I had as a child. For her sixteenth birthday, I told guests to bring unique decks, and they did. Sixteen new decks with only one duplicate to one she already owned.

When she got married, she packed her room, putting the various decks she found here and there into one container, counting them as she went. When she reached 200, she quit counting! (Disclaimer: she only played cards with less than ten of those decks.) As time went on, she found, as we all do with our childhood collections, that there comes a time to stop.

A Job for a Collector

In the real world of commerce and business, people who collect things have a name: curators. I like that. It sounds important. When someone asks me about the oodles of Christmas decorations I’ll soon be putting out, I can calmly say, “I’m a curator of all things Christmas!”

And talking about decorations, this curator needs to take stock of the space available and the number of items to put out. They don’t match. Same with the tree when we get it up. My ornament collection could fill the tree at Rockefeller Center … three trees, even! We may need a few extra lights, but you get my drift.

What IS a curator?

A curator? Aren’t we all? Let’s chat about that a bit.

Webster’s dictionary gives this definition of a curator: “A person who oversees or manages a place (such as a museum or zoo) that offers exhibits” or “a person at a museum, zoo, etc. who is in charge of a specific collection or subject area.”

Christmas Explosion

I oversee my home, which was often considered a zoo during our homeschool and theatre years. And I’m most definitely in charge of our Christmas décor, especially now that our children are out of the home.

You see, I’ve collected and curated angels, bells, nativity sets, Santas, carolers, and trees from every sort of material you can imagine – ceramic, plastic, wood, metal, fabric, yarn, paper, and even an antique iron bulldog who presides over my mother’s creche beside her grandmother’s plaster-of-Paris figurines. Now, who else do you know still decorates with plaster of Paris? And last year, I added an owl tree topper to my collection of owl ornaments, a gift from our grandson.

When Past Meets Present

That makes me want to add the Cambridge meaning of curator. They mention the same as Webster – “a person in charge of a department of a museum or other place where objects of art, science, or items from the past are on display.”

Quite obviously, a museum would hold ancient artifacts. But what of the things of nostalgia that nestle beside resin items in a family’s home? The China teacups from my grandmother’s collection. The beaded bells my paternal grandmother made. The 1950s guitar my father strummed along with Johnny Cash songs.

And believe me, I can get quite sentimental about those items. When author Allan Gurganus penned the adage, “Beware of using up your last forty years in being the curator of your first fifty,” I think he peeked in my closets. I’m in those “last forty years” and have curated enough things from the first fifty to start my own museum of oddities.

Know What You Know

Let’s go on to the actual job of curating. Oxford describes curating as being “a custodian of a collection.” They also say that a curator is “a specialist in a particular subject area and is closely involved in cataloging, conservation, and interpretation/display.”

Being a specialist involves studying and knowing all there is to know about a subject … or in this case, objects of interest. Hans Ulrich Obrist, a Swiss art curator and historian, said, “My job is art curator, not artist. All I have ever wanted to do is immerse myself in art, to enjoy it, to learn about it, to write about it, to talk to others about it.”

Interesting, huh?

The Focal Point

After years of research, learning, and collecting, the curator creates a display that will capture the interest and imagination of its viewers. He or she must consider what will entice a patron to enter the display area. In other words, what the first item they will see will be and why.

Think about the places you go to regularly: church, the grocery store, your doctor’s office, the post office. No, those people don’t necessarily curate collections, but they do think about the first thing a person will see when they walk through the door. What is the first thing you see in the church sanctuary? In many churches, it’s the cross, as it should be. The cross is the focal point of our faith; ergo, the most important thing we need to see.

Curators of Life

Hmm … what about our lives? WE are the curators of our own lives, right? I know, I know, it’s a stretch, but let’s think on that some.

Dr. Helen Caldicott, an Australian pediatrician, gave us this maxim: “We are the curators of life on earth. We hold it in the palm of our hand.” A solemn yet enticing thought. If her words hold truth, our lives as curators spread our collections to the world.

But what are those collections?

Remember my first sentence at the beginning of this post? “I’m a collector.” And sure, I collect things, but I also collect thoughts, dreams, and yes, nostalgia. I have curated some of those into devotions, sharing my faith in Jesus with readers.

Be a Curator of Love

Ah! There is the culmination of this collection of musings – Jesus. He was and is also a curator – a Curator of Love.

Think about it a minute. How many times in the Bible does it tell us to love God, to love others, to not love things, to love goodness, righteousness, faithfulness? As a curator of love, Jesus is “in charge of it” as the Cambridge definition noted.

I don’t know about you, but I want to be in that collection. I want my “loves,” if you will, to be many and on display! So saying, what would be the first things I’d want others to see?

I hope they see a smile. A welcoming look in my eyes. And when I speak, may the “display” of words spill kindness, forgiveness, … and love. If so, then my curating has been a success.

What will you collect today as you curate your life and “loves” and make it ready to be on display?

May your holidays be filled with as much love as you can collect!