the NYPL picture collection, whistling bird, the english teapot lives on
Happy New Year :) In late December, I decided to take a break. I read the entire Elana Ferrante Neopolitan series in 5 days, I read Don't Call Me Home (Alex Auder's memoir), I watched three Harry Potter movies, I watched a couple of Westerns from the Criterion Collection, then Saltburn. I painted with my baby for the first time. I played a lot of backgammon, drank pots of hojicha tea with wild roses at night. The first "work" thing I did this year, if you could call it that, is to compile images from the New York Public Library Picture Collection. I'm taking over the nyplpicturecollection Instagram for the month of January.
The picture collection lives in the beautiful flagship location of the New York Public Library on Bryant Park. It's a quiet room with a folder in the entryway of topics, in alphabetical order. Subjects like "Collegiate Life, 1990s", "Paris Nightclubs", "Tea Drinking" all direct you to folders full of images to pour over. This library in particular has been important to my family since my parents immigrated to New York from Kiev 35 years ago. They lived their first year in a small hotel near the Flat Iron building and my dad would come to the library to study English and to look for jobs in the New York Times. We would return to the library years later to watch men play chess in the park (my dad has been an avid chess player for at least my entire life) or in the winter, to watch ice skating. So to return to the library myself - I've been going about once a month for the past year and a half - to research tea through imagery - has been fulfilling in so many ways.
I structured my findings by first finding teapots and tea accoutrements that I like or that have cultural significance and then followed those images by looking at other folders that may be complimentary. For example, to come is a Theodore Roosevelt riding a horse teapot (incidentally, my dad's favorite president) with cowboy photos and horses to follow suit.
Below are some of the images I have found and already shared.
"Alessi’s bestselling product of all time" according to their website, this Whistling Bird Tea Kettle was designed by Michael Graves in 1985. Last time I was at Cooper Hewitt, they had these babies for sale in the gift shop.
DRU KETTLE by Dutch industrial designer Wim Gilles. I found an orange one of these enamel steel kettles in the V&A Museum collection.
This English teapot still lives (on Ebay anyways... I found number 399/1000). I would love to drink darjeeling tea with milk and honey out of this flowery piece.
Excited to share more over the course of the month! I also really enjoyed taking appointments at the studio at the end of the year, so if you want to stop by to shop in person, email me and we'll find a time :) Looking forward to sharing more of what's to come for Masha Tea in 2024.
Wishing you gentle tea time moments, newness, and dreams come true in this year to come. Thanks for being here with me!
The images above that don't have the references for where to find them in the library
1. white sheets image is from the folder gardens- french
2. beach photo is from the folder collegiate life - 1990s
With love,
Masha