Just the other morning, my husband and I were watching one of the morning news programs, the word curator kept popping into the speakers conversation. Finally after about the 5th time hearing the word being implanted into every other sentence my hubs turned to me and asked ” isn’t a curator someone who works with collections in museums? I explained to him it was the new buzzword used for just about everyone today.
Curator ~ the keeper or custodian of a museum or other collection. Have you noticed the word ‘ curator ‘ it is now used to describe anyone from ticket sellers, pop up markets to retail fashion shops. We don’t have collections anymore we curate.
Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a museum, library or archive. A curator is a content specialist responsible for an institution’s collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material.
Seems today everyone is a curator, digital specialists, ticket sellers, fashion shops, pop up markets, etc.. .
In the past few years it seems the word has taken on new meaning. It’s morphed into the new ” it ” word for bloggers, fashion, design, interior decorating, Pinteresting, Tumblr-ing, publishing, thrift-ing, and all other sorts of realms where selecting, choosing, filtering, or procuring sundry images or objects and placing them in some order, by theme, by color, by mood or material, becomes “curated” content.
Curator is derived from the Latin curare, meaning “to care for.” Many people, mostly museum curators, find this annexation of the term an affront to their profession, a devaluation and misapprehension of what it really means to be a curator.
The very act of curating was an art form unto itself. True discerning curators never just share their physical objects; They share the stories behind them, about why each object was hand picked and the personal connection they had with the object that makes each share come alive.
I buy and sell an eclectic array of items, from vintage collectibles, to Victorian art glass and sell them in an Antique Mall filled with an even greater selection of everything from 50s and 60s toys, to shabby furnishings, rusty relics from the past, & flea market finds to Tiffany and Fine Jewelry.. Are we curators or collectors ?
Michelle's Antiques LLC 