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Michele Alice is EcommerceBytes Update Contributing Editor. Michele is a freelance writer in the Berkshire mountains of Massachusetts. She collects books, science fiction memorabilia and more!
Change may be the only constant but its second to quality. In our experience Quality and Context persist.
My parents collected many things including artworks. There are many things in their collection I, not quite a millennial but close, may think is out of vogue. 10 watercolours of a quaint little imaginary or not cottage? A painting of a nude… because its nude?
At the end of the day it comes down to quality and context. A generic cottage, even if the artist is well listed, is if we’re honest a painting of a generic cottage. Just as, a note to the millenials and trendy folk out there, an abstract is simply an abstract without further continuity or context.
A generic looking painting of skill may not sell for the inflated costs at peak vogue but it is still an object reflective of its own discipline. A generic cottage under inspection may be a historic cottage near one’s summer cottage or residence. A nude might not be from the male gaze. A landscape could be tomorrow. An abstract yesterday.
Yesterdays nostalgia is more difficult. Howdy Doody may be todays Marvel. But todays Marvel isn’t devoid of continuity. A mass produced object not a makers creation. A common beanie baby a Picasso purchased to launder questionably gotten funds.
FutureShop or BestBuy? BestBuy or Amazon? Cheap product of slave labour? Quality item of function or creation? Meat or vegetable grown under 24/7 indoor intensive lighting? Gluten Filled Animal Cracker or All Natural No GMO Animal Cracker?
The current trends cannot be thrown out with the bathwater any more than the past. And given a fair and equal playing field people who buy are as willing to buy now as they were then. Can we create together a platform to reach each other?