Anyone can be a collector. When we look for certain kinds of things to buy or gather, we are collecting. People collect just about everything from CDs, to books, to dolls, to stuffed animals, to four-leaf clovers, to photographs, to concert ticket stubs, to rocks, to diamonds, to dried flowers and leaves, to vintage automobiles, to cacti, to baseball cards. Many people don’t collect one sort of thing but may keep a few special things that mean a lot to them. We care about things for different reasons. Some reasons are very personal and some reasons are shared with others.

Let’s take a look at one person’s collection of coffee mugs.



Which do you like the best? Which appeals to you the least?

As it happens, the woman who keeps this collection hanging on a cup rack in her kitchen, chose these cups over the years for a lot a reasons, not least of which, for the practical reason that she enjoys drinking coffee.

The woman grew up in a Swedish American farm community in the Midwest, so she likes the Swedish American mug and the International Harvester Tractor Company mug (plastic, not ceramic), even though they’re not so very visually interesting. They remind her of her childhood, so she keeps them. These are close to her heart and are personal preferences.



Some of the mugs in the woman’s collection are better than others.

For example, if we apply the criterion of interesting glazing or clever decoration, the mug on the right is better than the mug on the left. However, if repeat patterning is the criterion for judgment, then the mug on the left is better.



But the woman’s kitchen mugs fail to compare to the level of excellence exhibited by the extraordinarily diverse cups and other ceramic pieces in the collection of the Ceramics Research Center. The collection at the Ceramic Research Center represents the judgments of a group of experts working together within a public organization. The Center’s collection includes about 3000 pieces approximately half of which are on display.

Erick Gronborg, United States, 1972, porcelain, 6 x 4 5/8”d, Arizona State University Art Museum

Neil Williams, American, 1991, cup and saucer, whiteware, 4 3/4” by 6”, gift of Stéphane Janssen, Arizona State University Art Museum

Neither of these cups is functional. Neil Williams’ cup, on the right, is amazing in its interaction with the space around and within it (the negative space). Erik Gronborg’s cup on the left is extraordinary for its combination of multiple decorative processes.

Art museums, historical societies, libraries, and individuals collect many things for many reasons, for example for sentimental value, local interest, recognition from others, financial value, inspiration, or artistic value. We all make decisions based both on our personal feelings and also on reasons or general ideas we can explain to and share with others.

Do you have a collection? If so, how do you choose what belongs in that collection?

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