FROM ERNIE’S BATHTUB TO MY DASHBOARD

Until recently Ratty was a lone traveler. He simply sat upon my dashboard day in and day out pointing the way he was going – though not necessarily the way one should go. That is, as I said, until recently.

The other day, after the wife and I had a farewell breakfast with the houseguest, as we were driving through the vast parking lot the IHOP shares with the local Home Depot, I espied an odd bit of discarded yellow along the end of a row of parking spots. As I sped past I mumbled uncertainly, “Was that just a rubber ducky?” The wife and the houseguest turned in their seats, stretching their seatbelts, to confirm my sighting. Yes, indeed, in a seldom-used corner of the parking lot was a small rubber ducky toppled to one side. Of course, I put the car in reverse and maneuvered the automobile so that the wife could scoop up the orphaned bath toy without the inconvenience of leaving her snug passenger seat. And hence, Ratty was given a companion on his endless journey forward.

You may well wonder why Ratty himself perches on the dashboard of my Ford Focus, and how he came to be there. In short, what is Ratty’s story?

In the fall of 2001, as I was in the second year of my second MFA at Cranbrook, I accompanied a group of friends and colleagues to a bar – coincidentally named Ducky’s – for a bit of Halloween reverie. This bar, in getting into the spirit of the holiday, had covered nearly every available surface with – hopefully – fake spider webs, and peppered the establishment liberally with rubber bats, spiders, and, you guessed it, rats. One of the colleagues, after generous lubrication with festive beverages, decided that she simply had to pilfer a bit of the decoration. Thus, she slipped the nearest rubber creature into her jacket pocket, where it remained until it was unceremoniously left behind in my car – though not my current car. Several days later Ratty was found as I was cleaning empty paper coffee cups out of the seating areas. Seeing no other evident course of action I placed Ratty on my dashboard with a prime view forward, and that is the position he has occupied ever since, only changing position to cross over to the new vehicle in 2004 or after the occasional tumble during a particularly abrupt change of automotive direction.

You see, I have something of a history of collecting of discarded objects. I am not talking about your typical trash; I don’t just pick up anything off the street. No, I am somewhat obsessed with items that appear to have an unusual, though currently hidden, history. I collect paint-by-number paintings, but only ones that are framed, indicating that they resided on someone’s wall, that they have been cared for at some time.

Most commonly I find these things at thrift stores or antique malls, but occasionally I encounter them in unexpected spaces – as in Rubber Ducky’s case. In thrift stores I am fascinated by the uncertain existence of these things, the reality that someone, some time, cared for these things, placed them on walls or shelves in their homes. When I find them they are obviously no longer so important. They have been removed from their positions of honor for some reason – changes in interest or fashion, perhaps; sometimes they are unwanted gifts, though far too often these are the painfully discarded remnants that follow a death in the family. These objects that I collect, even though they are discarded, remain too important to throw away. Thus they end up at the Salvation Army or Goodwill in search of a new home, one I am all too ready to provide.

But it is not just any one of these objects that makes it into my collection. Perhaps I am not so much at odds with Walter Benjamin’s writings on the aura of the original art object as I would normally consider myself. Well, actually I am when it comes to Art, but in the case of these objects I make an exception. I cannot always explain why this particular tchotchke calls to me and another doesn’t. At times there are specific aesthetic criteria at play, but at other times I simply respond to an ineffable impulse to rescue.

I have even gone so far as to incorporate this practice into my teaching. Occasionally I give senior design students an assignment titled “Found Lives.” For this they have to go to a thrift store, purchase some odd thing or another, invent the unknown history of that particular object and incorporate that text and the object into a unified design. This assignment has produced some of my favorite student pieces, such as “Typewriter” by Jes Sokol and “White Shoes” by Angela Cook.


[click image to enlarge ]


[click image to enlarge ]

While some people find this obsession somewhat distressing, I believe my results with my students through this project point to a larger understanding common to many people: a recognition of the history of things, of the unavoidable past of everything around us, of a sense of community formed through the interchange of objects. Perhaps we are all historical pack-rats, accumulating stories as we go along, enshrining them in objects for as long as our environment can contain them, only relinquishing the memorials as our spaces become too crowded or when we need to make a break from the overwhelming detritus of our pasts.

Hence, as I drove through the nearly empty parking lot, I simply had to rescue little Rubber Ducky. Perhaps there was someone who might have returned to recover him – I worry about that, but I think it rather unlikely. For now, though, he has joined Ratty in his stalking of the road ahead. Rubber Ducky seems a little less placid at the moment, as he is more apt to slide about his new home during my bouts of more aggressive driving. Yet, I do think I can see a certain gleam in Ratty’s red eyes that reveals newfound prospects for the distant roads now that Rubber Ducky has joined him.

[On another note, the writing will now recommence in its accustomed frequency. I would also stay tuned for the saga of the real estate woe if I were you. I promise I shall begin the writing thereof now that resolution seems to have arrived.]