'Douglas Collects' Showcased at CAC

The of Douglasville/Douglas County offers a free public open house and reception for its summer exhibition, “Douglas Collects,” showcasing African masks and sculpture, butterflies and seashells, contemporary ceramics, classic American convertibles, antique dollhouse dishware, twentieth century Japanese prints, music boxes, Chinese pigs, saddle blankets, folk art Santas, and samovars on loan from private collectors in Douglasville and Douglas County at the Cultural Arts Center in downtown Douglasville.

Hosted by the Historical Society of Douglas County, the reception will be held on Sunday, from 2 until 4 p.m.  Many of the collectors whose collections are represented in the exhibit will be present during the reception to discuss the how, what and why they have collected. Coldstone Creamery ice cream will be served.  This event is free and open to the general public.

“On Sunday there will be several special displays including John Thornton’s beautifully restored automobiles,” commented CAC Director Laura Lieberman. “Eight of his classic convertibles including a gorgeous turquoise and white 1957 Bel Air will be exhibited on the grounds of the arts center just for the day. Arifeh Langkilde will also bring more samovars and tea glass sets for Sunday only, and we are hoping Claude Abercrombie will attend to talk about his saddle blankets. This is a really diverse and diverting show, perfect for summer viewing. In fact, the CAC gallery committee is already planning our next “Collects” exhibit because some of the collections we had hoped to display were not available this year–a collection of arrowheads, another of prayer beads from all of the major world religions, and another of children’s pop-up books. We definitely have a lot of great material to work with in our community. It is exciting, and we hope other local collectors will visit this exhibit and consider participating in the next one.”

The African masks and sculpture on display are owned by Gail Jones, an artist and teacher who moved to Georgia from Michigan about a year ago. Her interest in developing the collection recognized her cultural heritage and has helped inspire her own paintings and photographs. Several of the collectors are artists themselves. Painter Ken Paradise who teaches art classes at the began his career as a nature photographer, and his collections of seashells and butterflies are also sources of artistic inspiration.  Another collector who loaned anonymously is a potter who has acquired a very beautiful collection of contemporary ceramics including works by Warren McKenzie, Cynthia Bringle, Jane Peiser, Charles Counts, Cameron Covert and V. Chin among others. 

Childhood memories inspired collector Clara Porter who received a “Playtime Dish Set” as a gift from a neighbor when the Akro Agate miniature glassware, priced at 78 cents, was beyond her family’s means. She has one small green teacup from her original set and more than 100 of the miniature molded glassware today. Her collection includes examples of all of the brilliant colors of Depression Era glass, transparent and opaque, marbled and amethyst.  One of the four samovars from Arifeh Langkilde’s collection is also from her Middle Eastern childhood, a small beaten brass version made for children that she and her sister played with, while the others illustrate various cultures’ elaborate tea-making devices. On display are Russian and Turkish style as well as Persian samovars.  Memories are also represented in Claude Abercrombie’s collection of late twentieth century saddle blankets–he used four of those on display during his Bicentennial ride across the United States in 1976.

Another anonymous collector loaned her family’s twentieth century Japanese woodblock prints to the exhibit after visiting the Cultural Arts Center in May and seeing the nineteenth Japanese century prints, which had been loaned by the Japanese consulate in Atlanta. Her husband’s family had lived in Japan for many years and purchased a number of fine art prints as mementoes of their time there.  Writer Sylvia Krebs who has visited and lived in China many times, collected Chinese pig figurines as easily packed travel souvenirs. Her collection includes 15 small to tiny pigs carved from wood, ceramic, jade and stone, most notably a pig-shaped ink-grinding stone made from soapstone for a Chinese scholar’s desk. 

Mary Elizabeth Bolding, like many of the collectors represented in the current exhibit, actually collects a number of different objects–she has substantial collections of teapots, spoons, and music boxes.  A selection of about 20 from the almost 100 music boxes she has acquired over the past sixty years is on display at the Cultural Arts Center.  For almost as many decades Woodie Fite hand-painted Santa Claus figurines made from commercial slip molded forms, different Santas every year, and for almost every year Anya Mundy’s sister, Mae West (like Woodie, a self-taught folk artists), collected each one, often trading work with Woodie Fite. The fifty different Santa Clauses of the collection Anya Mundy inherited from her sister are on view in the current exhibit at the Cultural Arts Center in Douglasville.