Realia and Now
Objects worn with time and worn in their day are on display in the lower level of ODY:
Pennants, trophies, shovels and spades, briefcases, sweaters and more specifically beanies make up the display:
The beanies are perhaps the “show stopper” given that it is a stretch that requires imagination to envision first year students (even on a day such as this snowy February morning where a woolen beanie might be useful) wearing them as they wander about. A different scenario for fitting into the Laurentian landscape up to 1973 when the beanies finally went the way of the Studebaker, but one documented in the beanies themselves. The display is a fun reminder of how an object can be a curiosity saved and a curiosity saved a way to make history as vivid as scarlet. The wonder of having and handling the object that transports commonplace from sometime before 1973 to right now. Therein lies one of the joys of the impulse to save, that half sense of “that’s what it must have been like…”
So on a next visit to ODY before to venture downstairs for the SLU realia, and also do pause at the main level display or recently acquired artist books…