by Judith Meyerowitz
I look at my curio cabinet with awareness of kunst-wunderkammer, the 16th c Cabinet of Curiosities, the earliest of museums, but I suspect the collecting desire started with the rock age.
I think about wunder and wonder. My mind goes to Freud’s display of antiquities, the wood and glass a reminder of visiting his office outside London. His museum of mind, the space to reflect as well as mine.
The world of my travels I have placed under glass like a towering snow globe. Americana folk art ice cream man smiles at Spanish lady in an overflowing colorful dress of many layers, a large figure from Provence Marseille fisherman greets Polish peasant woman holding a rake, and Caribbean steel drummers back up a Mexican guitarist. Many of my pieces are chosen with spiritual ties: Day of the Dead shrines, nativity scenes, mezuzahs, and Ancient American god.
I note that these early museums were called “memory theater” and think of it as a stage set for my pieces behind a glass curtain whose doors open to the magical.
It is a miniature world, and I often move the pieces around- visually compose them in relationship to each other, restage them.
In the large real-world museum, I am a docent but, here I am the curator.
There are no preserved insects, taxidermy, nor fingers of saints in my museum.
My figures are artifacts from an earlier life period.
Dust enters between the doors, settles on all. I have not traveled for quite awhile.
Judith’s writing interests have deepened after taking the Writing Workshop sg for several semesters. These experiences have led her to explore other writing classes at the 92nd St. Y where this prose piece was developed.