Artist: LifeTitle: What's Missing/Absence/Loss/Memory/TimeDate: TimelessCulture: Metaphysical, PhilosophicalProvenance: I wish I knew. I haven't written in a long time. Largely that's because I've been short on time, but it's also because I've been short on motivation. There's a theme of absence here. I've been absent from my writing self because of a lack of other things. … Continue reading No. 21: What’s Missing
Artist: UnknownTitle: ViolinDate: 1950s?Culture: AmericanProvenance: Handed down to EAH via her mother and grandfather. At the back of my closet, hidden behind a curtain of long-unworn dresses, is a brown-canvas violin case with a worn leather handle. The violin has schlepped with me to each of the thirteen residences I've had since college, not finding … Continue reading No. 20: My Violin
Artist: Unknown Title: Collection of School Awards Date: 1998 Culture: American Provenance: Awarded to EAH in her senior year of high school High school looms large in my memory, as I guess it does for many people. But aside from one tattered old t-shirt, a collection of five or six diaries that I kept religiously … Continue reading No. 14: High School Awards
Artist: Willa Cather & Houghton Mifflin Company Title: My Ántonia Date: 1918; copyright renewed 1977 Culture: American Literature Provenance: Given to EAH by her mother in July of 1987 I recently found myself thumbing through my old copy of My Ántonia and felt an unexpected ache. I'm sure this is partly because I associate the … Continue reading No. 13: My Ántonia
Artist: Unknown Title: Perfume Set Date: 1993 Culture: American Provenance: Given to EAH by her aunt on her thirteenth birthday When I turned thirteen—something as a younger child I always denied would ever happen, deeming all teenagers to be evil incarnate—I was living in a small town in Illinois. I was at a new school … Continue reading No. 10: Perfume Set
Artist: Unknown, Moscow street artist Title: The Russia House Matryoshka Dolls Date: ca. 1991 Culture: Russian Provenance: Made to order in Moscow by EAH's father as a gift In a past that feels so distant that it seems impossible that I could have lived it, my family lived in Soviet Moscow where my dad was … Continue reading No. 9: The Russia House Matryoshka Dolls
Artist: Steinway & Sons Title: Piano Bench Date: 1950s Culture: American Provenance: Gifted (along with piano) to EAH's mother in the 1950s by her father and then gifted to EAH by her father in 2017, after her mother's death. When my mother was a child—I'm fuzzy on exactly when—my grandfather bought her a baby grand … Continue reading No. 7: Piano Bench
Artist: The Woodknot Bookshop, Newport, Vermont Title: Bookmark Date: 1990s Culture: American Provenance: Tucked into a book purchased at the Woodknot Bookshop in Newport, Vermont. Most likely purchased by the parents of EAH as a gift. Is there anything more ordinary than those paper bookmarks that are slipped into the new book you're buying at … Continue reading No. 4: Bookmark
Artist: Unknown. (Possibly Anchor Hocking Milano Lido? Morgantown Glass Company? Seneca Glass Company?) Title: Amber Crinkle Glass Date: 1950s or 1960s Culture: American Provenance: Presumably purchased new by the grandfather of EAH some time mid-century. Gifted to EAH by her grandfather around 2002. My grandfather, born the seventh of fourteen in a small town … Continue reading No. 2: Amber Crinkle Glass
For most of my childhood, my family had a home in northern Vermont. It was a home base during my family's peripatetic years, and it remained our fond home after we had moved to Illinois and it no longer made sense to have a home in the northeast. And so Vermont became an adopted home, … Continue reading Mysterious Beauty
Ellen A. Hurst 