Objects tell stories

 

Every picture tells a story. So does every object. And we know that some have a more important or interesting story to tell than others do.

A lot of these stories are very personal. The objects we use take on a meaning that is a story that only we will know. I have a knife I use when I’m camping, that I’ve sharpened many times. I feel as though I’ve made an investment in it and I kind of treasure it. To someone else, it will only be knife, not so different than others. To me, it’s a reminder of many nights of cooking over a campfire, in Quetico, Temagami, or Beaverlodge. My marks are on it, the polish of use and care, and they carry a sentimental story for me.

Our homes are usually filled with things that are weighted with memories and which we are reluctant to part with. The toys our children played with, for instance. Or things we bought when we were first married and money was tight. Things we made in school. Trophies that we won. The candlesticks that helped us celebrate the important holidays.

Objects can gain a patina through use, like my often-sharpened knife. Handles become shiny, from the oil in our skin and the polish of many handlings. These sometimes represent an improvement and antique stores confirm the value of things that have been used and valued.

Most things will not take that path though. Garage sales testify to the fact that values can be very ephemeral. The stories of those objects tend to be very quiet. Thrift stores are even more poignant, especially those that are near where people tend to retire. The often-used things are merely old and worn, not now treasured and valuable as they evidently once were to someone else.

 

For many of the objects, the story is only personal. It doesn’t reach a broader audience, it doesn’t speak to others. For those objects in antique stores and especially those that are in museums, the story is much more accessible. These objects become representatives of cultural histories and values. They speak too and for all of us.

For designers, this is an interesting topic to reflect on. What makes something valuable? There are many routes to that objective, some of which are deliberate and some of which are happenstance and luck.

Brands do this, at their best. They tell us a broader message, often about what things cost and also about how well made they are, or how coveted they are, or if they are signifiers of leading edge knowledge.

Beauty can do this too. When objects are intrinsically lovely, we like them better.

When our objects serve us well, we value them more as well. The knife that is balanced and fits our hand well, for instance. That is also true of pens and cell phones. When our inanimate servants serve us well, we like them better.

But there is a whole other category of story telling that we don’t seem to have so much of but of which we can identify examples. For instance, Native Americans, and particularly those on the West Coast, had a material culture that was unusually rich in story-telling. This may have been, in part, because there wasn’t a written language to record stories. It may also have been an expression of deep skill and sensitivity. As a designer, it’s hard not to envy it. Many of those artefacts depicted or represented animals and those animals, in turn, represented values and stories. And these messages are widely known. Over time, these animals became highly stylized in their representations. It’s like a type of ‘short-hand’ was developed, and this became a tool for designers to use, which, in turn, bestowed value on what they made. The stories that are told go beyond the personal to the general – they are understood by everyone and become everyone’s stories. The overwhelming success of this approach is that other cultures (Western, European) have found these objects to be very visually satisfying as well. And this satisfaction has been enduring.

I’ve often wondered about the scarcity of this kind of value in the overwhelming majority of the objects that we have. This may be part of the price we pay (or don’t) for having inexpensive things that are impersonally machine made.

 

Paul Epp is a professor at OCAD University, and chair of its Industrial Design Department.