In a world where the “Antiques Roadshow” has heightened interest in collectibles and eBay arguably makes their purchase possible, to collect or not to collect is not so much the question as where do you put the stuff after you have started a collection?
North suburban collector Jay Heyman’s answer was to design a basement room around his two primary passions: University of Michigan Wolverines memorabilia and firehouse mementos.
Before even entering the room, there are clues that here is a collector’s habitat: a huge poster of the Michigan football stadium wraps around the basement stairwell. A mannequin dressed in a 1950s London Fire Brigade uniform “greets” visitors at the foot of the stairs.
“I introduced myself [at a London firehouse], received a tour and said I was interested in purchasing a helmet. They wound up giving me a uniform and helmet, but they would not take money for them. So when I got home, I sent a package of Chicago Fire Department T-shirts, baseball caps, patches and fire books for the kids of the station’s firemen and families. They loved it,” Heyman says.
The uniform was picked up the same way much of his firefighter patches, badges and hats were acquired. A University of Michigan alum (Class of ’54) who volunteered with the Ann Arbor Fire Department while in college, Heyman mentions his volunteer background and continued interest as a collector whenever he visits a firehouse on his frequent travels. The football mural was purchased through J.C. Penney.
Most college memorabilia is readily available in a school’s hometown, according to Heyman, but no matter what the item, rare or not, he recommends buying it when you see it, if possible.
“The problem is that some things are not around forever. My advice, which I’ve learned from experience, is that if you see something you like, buy it fast. It may not be available next year,” he says.
Obtaining the items is just part of the joy. Almost as important, say some collectors, is displaying the treasures to enjoy them and share them with others.
For Heyman, who recently moved, that meant redoing a basement room that the prior owner finished in a dark Mediterranean style. The room is now light and bright with new stucco, new lights and white paint. Wall-to-wall red carpeting stayed as did a corner brick fireplace wall that is now a backdrop for firefighter helmets and tiny fire trucks.
How to smartly display items on a brick wall was left to North Shore Custom Framing owner Russell Igoe, whose Glenview shop had solved problems for Heyman’s wife, Judy, an artist who used custom pedestals for her sculptures and other art. “If you have half an idea of what you want, you tell him and he comes up with the answer,” she says.
Igoe’s solution for the tiny fire trucks was to install narrow clear glass shelves along the fireplace’s mortar lines.
The supports are cold-rolled black iron spikes with knobs just large enough to hold the glass in place. He formed larger iron spikes into hat holders to hold Trojan-style fire helmets along the top of the fireplace wall.
Other firefighter hats, some from as far away as Australia and Turkey, line shelves on one side of the fireplace. Wolverine footballs signed by championship teams and protected by display cubes sit on shelves on the other side.
Memorabilia line a hallway to a storage room where more fire and Michigan stuff overflow file cabinets and shelves. But Heyman is happy to have at least part of his collections appropriately arranged.
“This is a work in progress. What you see out here is maybe a third of what I have collected. But now that I have some of it organized, I’d like to share,” he says. “My fondest dream is to invite people to come see the collections, people who would appreciate this, maybe fellow fire buffs and Michigan alums. Collectors have a bond.”
Tea time
Opening a prized collection to small groups brings joy to Chicago-area collectors Patti and Stephen Vile who have amassed 170 teapots during the last 15 years.
“We enjoy sharing our collection with people who appreciate this sort of thing,” says Patti Vile, who has hosted Art Institute, Museum of Contemporary Art and Brandeis University groups. “It also benefits the not-for-profits, and it’s a way to support the artists.”
What the groups see are teapots as old an 18th Century Chinese cloisonneand 1930s English “cottage” series pots and as contemporary as items from such popular annual fairs as the American Craft Council Craft Show and Sculpture Objects & Functional Art (SOFA) Chicago.
Teapots cover just about every flat surface in every room of the Viles’ home, from the fireplace mantel in the living room to shelves in the master bedroom. Arrangement is often determined by whim; serving a particular purpose, such as a dinner centerpiece; or the addition of a new piece.
“We usually put new pieces in our bedroom so we can look at them all the time,” Vile says. “For a while we thought we should arrange them according to form. Animals, growing things … but we didn’t get very far. We decided we liked the mix.”
The attraction, to them, is a teapot’s “form and function,” explains Vile, who says they started noticing teapots as art about 15 years ago. “We thought they were beautiful, unique ceramics that made beautiful little sculptures,” she says.
Stephen adds, “It started gradually, then we became obsessed.” He warns that collecting teapots is also contagious. “They’ve taken over our life, and when our friends come over and see what we have, they start to get into teapots, too.”
Although Heyman and the Viles enjoy showing visitors their collections, they shy away from museum categorization. But some displays fit the category, as happens with a Glencoe motherwhose collecting zeal has embraced an historical theme: women’s paraphernalia and issues from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s.
“I wanted something that was fun to collect, that I would never be bored with and was not too expensive,” she says. Pointing out that she started the collection when her daughter, who now lives in Chicago, was in high school, she adds, “I wanted something I could pass on to my daughter, something that would have historical significance to women: how they lived, and what was expected of them.”
Display was not a problem when she found the first item, an early 1900s compact bought at a house sale about 15 years ago. It could go on her dresser or in a guest room. But as her collection expanded to clothes and other items, she needed a sizable space. Her elegant solution was to turn an upstairs guest room into a living museum.
To step into her “Women’s Room” today, is to take a time machine trip that makes several stops, including a World War I nurse’s uniform ona dress form near the door. Another form displays a 1940s gown. Old mannequin heads sport hats, ranging from Civil War bonnets to 1920s cloches. Beaded bags dangle from knobs on a bureau stacked with women’s magazines from the early 1900s. Closet doors open to early 1900s bathing costumes and dresses, period shoes, boots and hatboxes. Makeup, hair items, garters, corsets and handkerchiefs fill old bureau drawers.
“I try to get the whole picture. I’m interested in not just the item, but how it was stored,” she says. “After 15 years I take a more sophisticated approach and also the antique market has changed. The stuff isn’t out there. More and more dealers are putting their scarce stuff on eBay and items are getting more expensive. But I’ve had a ball doing this.”
