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Community Corner

Trash to Treasure: Salvaging an Artist's Legacy

My late great-aunt lived to craft everyday things into the useful and the beautiful. The ambitious task of clearing out her home let us honor her essence, and to the improbable benefit of many others.

Last November saw the passing of a beloved great-aunt of mine. Aunt Antoinette was a trained artist and gifted sculptor whose profession gave her the esteemed privilege of casting reproductions of ancient artworks—picture busts of Nefertiti or Greek classical statues.

She lived a simple existence in a 90-year-old, two-story rowhome in South Philadelphia. Her health failing, it fell on my mother and I the Herculean task of preparing her estate for sale. This was a challenge from an emotional standpoint, but the logistics of emptying an entire home was even more daunting.

And if you've ever seen an episode of Hoarders, you're starting to get the idea. Suffice to say Aunt Ant was eccentric.

To be fair, her hoarding wasn't so much a psychological quirk as the manifestation of Depression-era frugality. That means flattening and reusing aluminum foil. It means turning junk mail envelopes into notepads. Everything is given a second life.

In that way, my great-aunt and I were cut from the same cloth.

So without a clue where to begin, we simply began. The next six months saw at least 20 trips: 20 bridge crossings, 20 artful parallel parkings, 20 car-fulls of this, that and the other.

And while at the time we felt like portless ships, meandering aimlessly through our chore, I look back now and see divine order among the chaos.

It started with the abrupt realization that much of what occupied the space had to be considered trash. At times it left me with an empty feeling. To see a woman's possessions unceremoniously deposited into a landfill somehow struck me as uncivilized.

But soon we hit a turning point. The property was sold, and suddenly there was a deadline.

Here's where we got creative. We knew much that remained—furniture, housewares and such—should live on, in new homes, pleasing new owners. So we got to it.

Chairs, tables, stools—still of sound structure but aesthetically tired—would get Cinnaminson resident Colleen Pascal's rejuvenating touch. Through her Etsy shop, Pretty Distressed, she injected new life into the timeworn furniture.

A wardrobe dating from the 1960s got a similar treatment from my own belle Kathryn Vennell. Her medium starts tattered and torn, and is then reworked into new fashions. Her online vintage clothing shop Goldilocks Incognito has given my great-aunt's wares a vibrant new future.

Then I reached out for my old friend Craig—specifically the "Free" section on Craigslist. Among scores of items, we offered up a gorgeous mahogany armoire, a woefully wobbly desk, a wrought-iron bookshelf. Free was key.

I was ready for the vultures to descend. But that's not what happened.

In the coming weeks, a parade of fascinating individuals toured the home as though a museum, taking in the peculiar art, the knick-knacks of yore, and wondering aloud about the woman who once treasured it all.

We made a couple from Folcroft happy with a dining room table set, while a Fairmount woman gleamed at a vintage baker's rack, and a young duo delighted at a set of ornate gilded lamps.

There were no scavengers. Everyone was gracious, some even adoring. Their kindness bestowed a honor to my great-aunt's memory we otherwise wouldn't have enjoyed.

It culminated in the most curious of ways. When it was time for the piano to go, a Craiglist respondent told me it would be used in an art installation. Free piano movers!, I thought.

Six twentysomethings—none sporting the hulking frame incumbent to Wurlitzer-hauling—showed up in a most uniquely colored van. Somehow, they willed the monstrosity out the door, down the steps and into the festive vehicle. But they weren't done.

Upon learning everything had to go, boy did they help things go!

Artists and performers, the group is part of the nationally renowned Miss Rockaway Armada, sponsored by the Philadelphia Art Alliance. In an effort to redefine the very concept of "trash," a flotilla built entirely of recycled and salvaged materials will float down the Schuylkill River in late August, and roll through various parts of Philadelphia in early September, before settling in as an exhibit at the PAA for the rest of the year.

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They told me they'd name a float after my great-aunt: The Antoinetta. Sounds seaworthy enough to me.

Things rarely come so full-circle, and in such an effective and satisfying way. But indeed, the very collection of stuff that so intimidated me, became a fulfillment of the needs of others, and turned Aunt Ant's artistic spirit loose on a new generation.

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The house is now empty, and settlement is today. I'm starting to think her masterpiece is complete.

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