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"Junking" with Ralph Lauren Creative Director Mary Randolph Carter
102 Plays8 months ago
You may know Mary Randolph Carter (who goes by the name Carter) as the longtime director of Ralph Lauren. But she is also a savvy collector, and an eloquent exponent for the art of the same. Her latest book, Live With the Things You Love, and You'll Live Happily Ever After, delves into private collections the world over, drawing connections between environments full of interesting objects and the good life. In this episode Carter expounds on objects in her own collection, from the odd “Jello Rock Clock” to the sublime painted-plaster-and-wood Statue of the Blessed Lady.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Curious Objects, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
00:00:13
Speaker
I'm Ben Miller.
00:00:15
Speaker
This is the podcast about art, decorative arts and antiques, the stories behind them, and what they can reveal to us about ourselves and the people who came before us.
00:00:23
Speaker
Today, I'm speaking with Mary Randolph Carter.
00:00:27
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She was the longtime creative director for Ralph Lauren.
00:00:31
Speaker
And she's the author of several books about collecting, including her brand new release, Live With The Things You Love.
00:00:40
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This book is a tribute to collectors and collections, not necessarily of high-end, top-of-the-market finery, but more of personal and sentimental value and connection.
00:00:53
Speaker
It's full of images and essays about people who have collected in so many different ways, but with the common thread that they're all living with the fruits of their collecting.
00:01:03
Speaker
They've filled their homes, and in some cases their second homes, with things that probably mean more to them than to anyone else in the world.
00:01:12
Speaker
Now, I knew this book would appeal to Curious Objects listeners when I read in Carter's intro, what makes life astounding is not the things we've collected and lived with, but the people and the memories we associate
Carter's Favorite Finds
00:01:25
Speaker
with them.
00:01:25
Speaker
Mary Randolph Carter, welcome to Curious Objects.
00:01:28
Speaker
Thank you, Ben.
00:01:29
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It's great to be here.
00:01:30
Speaker
My life is filled with curious objects.
00:01:33
Speaker
So this is fun for me.
00:01:36
Speaker
Yes, so it seems.
00:01:38
Speaker
And so, I mean, that's very clear from the pictures in your books.
00:01:41
Speaker
But I'm excited to hear about some of these collecting journeys and mentalities and objects that you've explored.
00:01:48
Speaker
But first off, I have some rapid fire questions for you.
00:01:51
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Are you ready?
00:01:52
Speaker
I hope so.
00:01:53
Speaker
We'll find out.
00:01:55
Speaker
What is the ugliest object that you've ever seen but secretly love?
00:02:00
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Oh my God.
00:02:01
Speaker
Well, what comes to mind is what I call the Jell-O rock clock.
00:02:06
Speaker
It was this ugly clock that looked like it had been encased in red Jell-O with pebbles in it.
00:02:13
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And it was, I think I found it in a junk shop on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
00:02:18
Speaker
It was awful, but I loved it.
00:02:21
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I had to have it.
00:02:22
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In fact, my sister found another one like it.
00:02:24
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So now I have two of them.
00:02:26
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So the jello rock clock is probably one of the ugliest things that I had to have in my life.
00:02:32
Speaker
And by the way, the clock didn't work either, of course.
00:02:35
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Of course.
00:02:36
Speaker
Sounds like you probably have the world's largest collection of jelly rock
Philosophy of Collecting
00:02:40
Speaker
clocks.
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I think so.
00:02:42
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Not jelly, jello.
00:02:43
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Oh, jello.
00:02:44
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Jello.
00:02:45
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Yes, important distinction.
00:02:46
Speaker
Okay, what movie shows material culture in the most captivating way?
00:02:51
Speaker
The Royal Tenenbaums, maybe?
00:02:53
Speaker
Royal Tenenbaums, yeah.
00:02:55
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Apropos after Gene Hackman's passing.
00:02:59
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What's your favorite museum to visit?
00:03:03
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At one point I would have said the American Folk Art Museum here in New York City, which I still love and actually has exhibited a few little items of mine over the years.
00:03:13
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But the Met is kind of in my backyard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
00:03:18
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I love the American Wing.
00:03:20
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I love all the Impressionists.
00:03:22
Speaker
I can look out my bedroom window and see the roof of the Met.
00:03:25
Speaker
So I guess that's one of my favorites.
00:03:27
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It's a little hometown bias, but nothing wrong with that.
00:03:30
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Definitely.
00:03:31
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What's the most unexpected place that you've found something extraordinary?
00:03:37
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Wow.
00:03:38
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There was a little junk shop in Nags Head, North Carolina called the Merry-Go-Round.
00:03:44
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It was just filled with the abandoned goods of so many kinds of different people.
00:03:48
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And I never expected to even walk in there.
00:03:52
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But when I did many, many years ago with my mother, who was a beloved partner in crime of junking, as I call it, we walked out with like, you know, five or six amazing things that spoke to me.
00:04:06
Speaker
What was the last object or work of art you saw that sent shivers up your spine?
00:04:11
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Oh, boy.
00:04:12
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Well, I was thinking it was actually quite a while ago, but I was going to the Rhinebeck Antique Fair, which is in Rhinebeck, New York, in upstate New York, not far from our country refuge.
00:04:24
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And there was an amazing embroidered rendering of George Washington crossing the Delaware.
00:04:32
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And it's quite huge.
00:04:33
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It's probably three by four or something like that.
00:04:37
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And when I looked closer, I noticed that all the characters, including George and his team in the boat, were all Asian.
00:04:44
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So it was obviously done, you know, by an Asian artist.
00:04:49
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And it now hangs in our living room over the sofa.
00:04:52
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And it gave me shivers, and it still does whenever I look at it.
00:04:56
Speaker
What's one object that you regret not buying when you have the chance?
00:05:01
Speaker
There haven't been many.
00:05:04
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You just go for it.
00:05:05
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I'm not very discriminating.
00:05:07
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I can't think.
00:05:08
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I can't think of anything that I left behind.
00:05:11
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That makes you a very lucky person.
00:05:13
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If you could snap your fingers and magically know the full provenance of one object, anything in the world, what would it
Stories Behind Collections
00:05:20
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be?
00:05:21
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That would be so many things that I own.
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One of them is a little wooden cupboard that actually sits right over my desk that my son, I have two sons, my younger son, Sam gave me, and it has a little red hand
00:05:37
Speaker
painted on it with a finger kind of pointing.
00:05:40
Speaker
And it also has the initials MC, which made it very personal since Mary Randolph Carter.
00:05:46
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But I have no, I would love to know, it was obviously something made by somebody with the initials MC, I guess, but what was that finger pointing at?
00:05:56
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I would love to know more about that cupboard.
00:05:59
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And it intrigues me to this day.
00:06:01
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That's great.
00:06:02
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That's a great choice.
00:06:03
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I love that.
00:06:04
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I think we all have, I mean, you obviously have many things that fit into the category of, you know, wouldn't you like to know about it?
00:06:10
Speaker
But for many of us, there are a couple of pieces that are just so tantalizing, like there must be a story there, if we could only know what it is.
00:06:17
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Well, that's I think why I love I love to collect paintings, I call them junk masters, but just paintings that people have done whether they were art school projects, and turn it over.
00:06:28
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And just hopefully there'll be some kind of a message on the back, you know, to on
00:06:32
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to Johnny from Aunt Matilda, I'll never forget that.
00:06:36
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It's great when you can find clues, you know, to the owners and the stories, but very often you're left to your own devices.
00:06:43
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And I like that too, because you can kind of make up the stories around these pieces and imagine where they lived and who created them.
00:06:51
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And I feel a great responsibility when I do collect something and bring it into my home to give it special attention and think about the person that originally owned it or created it.
00:07:03
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And often it's some kind of a hybrid.
00:07:05
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You know certain things about it, but you have to fill in the gaps and use your imagination and both your research chops, but also your creative chops.
00:07:15
Speaker
And speaking of that, what is an object that you might have initially underestimated, but then grew to appreciate through research?
00:07:24
Speaker
Well, I just don't think I'm that person.
00:07:27
Speaker
I'm sorry, probably your audience is not like me.
00:07:31
Speaker
I don't know, but I just fall in love with something.
00:07:34
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And I don't really stop and do research, although maybe someone might come in like that embroidered picture of the George Washington crossing the Delaware.
00:07:45
Speaker
I've had people that have more knowledge than I come in and see that and say, Carter,
00:07:49
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that's really worth something.
00:07:51
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You should do more research on that, blah, blah, blah.
00:07:53
Speaker
Of course I never have.
00:07:56
Speaker
Well, and to be clear, I don't just mean research in the traditional sense of sticking your head in books, but it could be talking to people about it.
00:08:04
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It could be having those sorts of conversations.
00:08:08
Speaker
There are a lot of ways of learning about things, right?
00:08:10
Speaker
Oh, absolutely.
00:08:12
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But Ben, I would just say that, you know, having collected things for decades, the more I live with them, the more I do appreciate them.
00:08:20
Speaker
So there may have been something like I have a pair of carnival plaques that probably were on a merry-go-round and the people, the faces of the people on them were so ugly, but now the more I've looked at them, I love the way they look.
00:08:34
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There's a beauty in their sort of idiosyncratic ugliness.
00:08:39
Speaker
Just living with, you know, as I said, live with the things that you love.
00:08:43
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And you left out the most important subtitle of that, and that is you'll live happily ever after.
00:08:48
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So the things that I've surrounded myself with have always, for different reasons, made me happy.
00:08:55
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And happier as time goes on.
00:08:57
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That is really the magic of them, isn't it?
00:08:59
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It's the more time you spend with them, the more interesting they get, the more captivating, the more motivating they are.
00:09:06
Speaker
Most things in life, we think they lose their luster as they
Listener Engagement
00:09:10
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age, but with objects, it's the exact opposite, isn't it?
00:09:13
Speaker
Objects and people.
00:09:15
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And people.
00:09:16
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We'll be right back with Mary Randolph Carter to talk about her book, Live With The Things You Love.
00:09:25
Speaker
First, I just want to say, as always, thanks for listening and thanks for getting in touch and sharing your thoughts.
00:09:32
Speaker
Make sure you are subscribed to Curious Objects on whatever app you're using to listen right now.
00:09:37
Speaker
That could be Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc.
00:09:40
Speaker
They all have a subscribe button.
00:09:42
Speaker
That is the best way to make sure you don't miss out on future episodes.
00:09:45
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00:09:52
Speaker
appreciate.
00:09:52
Speaker
You can reach me on Instagram at Objective Interest, or you can email me at CuriousObjectsPodcast at gmail.com.
00:10:01
Speaker
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00:10:04
Speaker
If you're enjoying it, one way you can help support us is by leaving a rating and review.
00:10:09
Speaker
Again, you can do that in Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and it really helps new listeners to find their way to Curious Objects.
00:10:18
Speaker
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00:10:26
Speaker
All right, let's get back to the show.
00:10:28
Speaker
Now, it was hard to settle on a single curious object for today because there are literally thousands in this book.
00:10:36
Speaker
But there is one piece in your personal collection, Carter, that struck me as especially evocative and sentimental, even though it's a bit of a mystery.
00:10:46
Speaker
So I want you to tell me about what you call the Statue of the Blessed Lady.
00:10:52
Speaker
And this is, for listeners, we'll post photos of this as always at themagazineantiques.com slash podcast, but it's a carved wooden statue.
00:11:01
Speaker
It's a couple of feet tall, covered in painted plaster, and it depicts a woman standing with her
00:11:07
Speaker
hands folded in prayer.
00:11:09
Speaker
Perhaps it's the Virgin Mary.
00:11:11
Speaker
You know, it has a very folk art sort of feel to it.
00:11:13
Speaker
And if you like patina, boy, there is a lot of patina to get excited about here.
00:11:19
Speaker
But Cartier, tell me about the history of this piece as far as you know it.
00:11:23
Speaker
It's my history skimpy, but I'm from Virginia and I grew up the latter part of my life in a house that was built about 1680 and restored by my parents.
00:11:35
Speaker
And people thought it was kind of crazy because we had just lost our total house and everything we owned in a fire.
00:11:43
Speaker
And it took us a while to figure out where to build that next home or to acquire a next home.
00:11:48
Speaker
And my parents fell in love with this beautiful old house.
00:11:51
Speaker
And
00:11:52
Speaker
In that house, in the living room, in front of one of the several fireplaces, there was this
Family Influence on Collecting
00:12:00
Speaker
statue that you described.
00:12:02
Speaker
Yeah, I call her a blessed lady.
00:12:04
Speaker
I hope that she's somehow related to the blessed mother because...
00:12:09
Speaker
I seem to pray to her all the time to get me through the day.
00:12:13
Speaker
But anyway, she was this really tattered and messed up statue, like you said, a couple of feet tall.
00:12:21
Speaker
And she was on one side of the fireplace on the floor.
00:12:24
Speaker
And on the other side was her partner in crime, which I think was St.
00:12:29
Speaker
Joseph.
00:12:30
Speaker
And she was really pockmarked, this poor woman.
00:12:33
Speaker
I don't think it was leprosy.
00:12:34
Speaker
I think it might have been termites that really got to her over time.
00:12:39
Speaker
My mother must have bought her, as she often did, would go to these auctions, probably someplace in Virginia.
00:12:47
Speaker
And of course, I have to bring up the fact that I'm Catholic.
00:12:51
Speaker
My mother was Catholic.
00:12:53
Speaker
I'm the oldest of nine, but that didn't really necessarily have to do with
00:12:57
Speaker
the religion.
00:12:59
Speaker
Just my mother was like one of two, a small family, two sisters.
00:13:03
Speaker
And I think she always wanted to have a large family.
00:13:06
Speaker
And luckily she found a guy in my father who was Presbyterian, who agreed and wanted to have this big family.
00:13:13
Speaker
So I think the other thing that drew me to the Blessed Lady, other than the fact that it was part of our home.
00:13:21
Speaker
And then when my mother and father had passed away and the home is now lived in
00:13:27
Speaker
by one of my sisters, I have six, and she has kind of kept it, very much preserved it in the spirit of the house that we grew up in.
00:13:35
Speaker
But in any case, we were allowed to go through and pick things that had special meaning to us.
00:13:41
Speaker
And I always loved this blessed lady.
00:13:45
Speaker
And I think growing up Catholic and going to mass every Sunday and look, and as a child, particularly seeing all these statues of these really intriguing people, not just Jesus and Mary and Joseph, but there was this little baby dressed up like a king, the infant of Prague.
00:14:03
Speaker
And
00:14:04
Speaker
I just loved him.
00:14:05
Speaker
I have a huge collection of infants of Prague.
00:14:08
Speaker
So I'm drawn to these sort of religious totems that have a kind of mystery and romance to them.
00:14:17
Speaker
I don't think she was ever in a grand church or anything.
00:14:20
Speaker
I like to think that maybe she was in a little private chapel, maybe, of a country estate.
00:14:26
Speaker
I see her living in this beautiful little personal chapel in the country.
00:14:31
Speaker
And at some point, the house went to ruin and the family, whatever, lost their fortune and someone took it.
00:14:38
Speaker
But she's just got a spirit and a romance that just speaks to me.
00:14:41
Speaker
And even though I don't know her provenance, I just look at her.
00:14:46
Speaker
She's been through a lot.
00:14:47
Speaker
There are these like nails stuck in her chest that kind of hold the hands in place.
00:14:52
Speaker
And I'm not even sure if the folded hands were originally hers.
00:14:56
Speaker
Some clever person might have...
00:14:59
Speaker
found them and nailed them to her.
00:15:01
Speaker
But she's just this eclectic, idiosyncratic, saintly, blessed woman.
00:15:09
Speaker
And she's like, I move her around in our, you know, we live in a Manhattan apartment and 12 stories up.
00:15:15
Speaker
Sometimes I have her in the front hall to welcome guests into our home.
00:15:21
Speaker
My husband Howard, he's long suffering as he was never, never one to collect.
00:15:27
Speaker
but somehow he's put up with it all.
00:15:29
Speaker
And he's also Jewish, so he somehow accepts all these religious artifacts that I have hanging around.
00:15:37
Speaker
Well, I love this because it's a piece that now has a real concrete history that you know about in the form of
00:15:44
Speaker
existing in your parents' house and now in your apartment, you know, that's however many decades that is, is a significant part of the history of this object now.
00:15:54
Speaker
And then before that, it has a more mysterious history that lives in your imagination in various ways.
00:16:00
Speaker
And you combine those real and imaginary histories together and you end up with a piece that's so evocative and
00:16:09
Speaker
And just to look at it, you know, I mean, you've mentioned the termites, the nails.
00:16:15
Speaker
You just know that it's lived a life.
00:16:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think I think at some point, you know, maybe I'm beginning to resemble her more as time goes on, you know, as I move into the, you know, my gosh, I've been around decades.
00:16:28
Speaker
And so I don't.
00:16:29
Speaker
I just look at her and I think of her resilience.
00:16:32
Speaker
She has a certain kind of resilience.
00:16:35
Speaker
She's been battered and she's been descended on by all kinds of insects,
Collecting vs. Hoarding
00:16:40
Speaker
but she's still here and she believes in her life.
00:16:44
Speaker
And that gives me great inspiration.
00:16:48
Speaker
Something that I really appreciate about what you were just saying about this piece is how you move her around and sort of give her a purpose and different purposes at different times.
00:17:00
Speaker
We all have these pieces in our houses that maybe we once put them where they are with a purpose in mind, but over time they've...
00:17:09
Speaker
They've really become background noise.
00:17:10
Speaker
You know, we walk past them without thinking about them most of the time.
00:17:14
Speaker
But then sometimes they do, they'll jump out and say hello, right?
00:17:17
Speaker
Right.
00:17:18
Speaker
And so, you know, I'm curious with regard to this statue, you know, how often do you actively think about it?
00:17:25
Speaker
And what role does it end up playing in your daily life?
00:17:29
Speaker
Well, you know, it depends upon the time of the year.
00:17:31
Speaker
I would say like during the holidays, and I'm a big sentimentalist when it comes to celebrating holidays and particularly like, let's say Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever.
00:17:42
Speaker
I always, we always have a big Christmas tree.
00:17:45
Speaker
And so I always put her next to the tree because I feel like she would enjoy that.
00:17:51
Speaker
And she's sort of part of the spiritual side of celebrating these holidays.
00:17:56
Speaker
I love to move things around because first of all,
00:17:59
Speaker
I don't really like change.
00:18:00
Speaker
I'll admit that.
00:18:01
Speaker
And that's why I'm living with such clutter, but fairly disciplined.
00:18:07
Speaker
But I think it's important.
00:18:09
Speaker
We've lived in the same apartment for maybe three decades, which is unusual for a New Yorker.
00:18:16
Speaker
And so things have been in the same place for a long time.
00:18:20
Speaker
And so it's really important, I think, to pick up a painting and move it or change the rug or move that chair.
00:18:27
Speaker
And she's obviously, she's portable.
00:18:30
Speaker
I can't move that big, big embroidered picture of Washington crossing the Delaware because I don't have a wall that
00:18:36
Speaker
They're all taken up by all kinds of artwork.
00:18:38
Speaker
But she is someone that I can pick up and move.
00:18:41
Speaker
So some night I'm, you know, let's say I'm, I don't know, anxious.
00:18:46
Speaker
I might just pick her up and bring her into the bedroom so she can watch over my sleep.
00:18:53
Speaker
I love that that brings you comfort.
00:18:54
Speaker
For a lot of people, I think it would be the opposite.
00:18:57
Speaker
Oh, no, she's not scary at all.
00:18:59
Speaker
She's not scary.
00:19:00
Speaker
She's so benign.
00:19:02
Speaker
Where do you draw the line between collecting and hoarding?
00:19:06
Speaker
Is there a difference?
00:19:07
Speaker
No, I'm kidding.
00:19:08
Speaker
I mean, hoarding is like, I mean, I guess you could say collecting and hoarding are kind of addictions, but collecting for me has, I mean, I don't just buy things willy-nilly.
00:19:19
Speaker
I mean, I'm confronted with something and it tells me a story, it touches a nerve.
00:19:24
Speaker
It reminds me of someone, a place.
00:19:27
Speaker
And so when I choose to add something to my life, I think I'm pretty purposeful about it.
00:19:35
Speaker
Whereas I feel like hoarders, they just have to have more and more things.
00:19:40
Speaker
I mentioned I've lived through a couple of fires in my childhood and lost everything, even family.
00:19:47
Speaker
And so people say to me, I would think you would live in a room with like five things, you know, instead of being surrounded by all of these collections.
00:19:59
Speaker
They give me comfort.
00:20:00
Speaker
They give me, they make, like I said, they make me happy.
00:20:04
Speaker
They tell me a story.
00:20:05
Speaker
I have a little George Washington on my desk that was like a penny, a bank that I gave to my father years ago.
00:20:12
Speaker
And it sat on his desk for many, many years.
00:20:15
Speaker
And after he passed away, I brought George Washington and he sits on my desk.
00:20:20
Speaker
And it just brings back memories of my father.
00:20:24
Speaker
So collecting and hoarding, they're just very different things.
00:20:27
Speaker
Also, discipline.
00:20:29
Speaker
If you are going to allow yourself, like I have all these years, to fall in love with so many things, wacky like the Jell-O rock clock, there has to be some kind of not only a thread
00:20:45
Speaker
in what you're collecting, but there has to be some discipline.
00:20:48
Speaker
And you have to really respect the objects.
00:20:52
Speaker
You just can't have them willy-nilly piled up all over the place.
00:20:55
Speaker
I think you really have to think about how to display them, because we have to live our lives
Strategies for Collecting
00:21:00
Speaker
in these places, you know?
00:21:02
Speaker
I have to have a place where my husband can sit down and read the paper.
00:21:06
Speaker
I can't have 15 pillows piled up.
00:21:09
Speaker
So I think discipline about the way that you not only collect and choose, but how you display your objects is really important.
00:21:17
Speaker
And then, of course, there comes a day, like I almost named this book and maybe I'll do this book eventually.
00:21:23
Speaker
You can't take it with you.
00:21:26
Speaker
You know, that sounds kind of negative, but I think it's just really important that we, at some point, I do have to let go of things.
00:21:35
Speaker
And whether it's a tag sale or a gift to someone, I have a big barn of stuff.
00:21:40
Speaker
And my husband keeps saying to me, this summer, Carter, we're going through that barn and I'm getting a dumpster.
00:21:49
Speaker
Oh, boy.
00:21:49
Speaker
I'll let you know how that goes.
00:21:53
Speaker
Yeah, good luck with that.
00:21:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:55
Speaker
Now, I want to note this statue that we've been discussing is something that you inherited.
00:22:01
Speaker
I mean, I know you picked it out, but it wasn't an inheritance.
00:22:04
Speaker
But of course, a lot of your pieces, most of your pieces are things that you've gone out and found in the world and acquired for yourself.
00:22:12
Speaker
So I'm curious, how do you go shopping?
00:22:16
Speaker
Where do you look?
00:22:18
Speaker
Do you set out to find something specific or do you wait and see what you stumble into?
00:22:23
Speaker
I think that you have to be kind of deliberate.
00:22:27
Speaker
I've always believed in a list when you go out.
00:22:32
Speaker
It's good whether it's in your head or written on a piece of paper.
00:22:36
Speaker
When I was really into my really craziness of junking, I always wore a fishing vest with lots of little pockets.
00:22:43
Speaker
And in each pocket, I put something like the list, a magnifying glass, money, a tape measure, the tools that I might need when I'm out in the field of junk, you know?
00:22:56
Speaker
And I never wanted to have to carry anything.
00:22:59
Speaker
So everything that I needed was in my junker's vest is what I called it.
00:23:05
Speaker
I always have a list.
00:23:06
Speaker
of things like maybe it's someone's birthday or an anniversary and they're the kind of person that would really enjoy a personal unique kind of gift so i might have that on the list but very often it's just walking through like last weekend i was at the um chelsea flea market
00:23:27
Speaker
on 29th street in the city.
00:23:29
Speaker
And I saw all these beautiful indigo textiles from Africa, from the Ivory Coast.
00:23:37
Speaker
And I mean, sometimes it's textiles that I really love to layer.
00:23:41
Speaker
Like I hate sofas, I hate new furniture.
00:23:43
Speaker
So what I tend to do is like cover them and camouflage them with things.
00:23:47
Speaker
I'm so glad, by the way, just as a quick interruption, I'm so glad to hear you say that you hate sofas.
00:23:54
Speaker
I know so few people who agree with me about that.
00:23:57
Speaker
I hate sofas, but I have two sons and a husband that are quite tall and long and love to stretch out, and they would look around, Mom, there's no place for me to rest.
00:24:10
Speaker
And you don't want to buy a sofa from a
00:24:12
Speaker
So I went to the flea market, particularly, so I'll buy a new sofa, but then I have to personalize it.
00:24:18
Speaker
Anyway, so I went to the flea market and I saw a lot of things, but I really found a beautiful piece of blue indigo textile.
00:24:29
Speaker
and my son Carter were with me and I bought her one too.
00:24:33
Speaker
I love that too.
00:24:34
Speaker
When you're out with friends or family, when you see there's something that they love to find something to give them too.
00:24:42
Speaker
She is so good though, because me, I would have just brought it home and thrown it over a chair.
00:24:47
Speaker
She took it home and carefully rinsed it and washed it.
00:24:52
Speaker
Careful not to take any of the patina away.
00:24:55
Speaker
Sure.
00:24:56
Speaker
And do you mentally picture a piece in your home before you buy it or do you buy it first and then sort out the placement later?
00:25:03
Speaker
Oh, I never, never.
00:25:05
Speaker
I'm not that good.
00:25:07
Speaker
No, I think what's fun is I love to get home with whatever it is and figure out where would I put it, you know?
00:25:15
Speaker
And sometimes it's a juxtaposition, you know, of mixing it with something that you never would have expected it to live with.
00:25:22
Speaker
So I never, no, I'm not very good at thinking ahead, I have to admit.
00:25:27
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:28
Speaker
Well, that could be a pro, not a con in a lot of cases.
00:25:33
Speaker
Well, you know, it's funny because I thought you might say, did you ever come home with something and then you couldn't find a place for it?
00:25:39
Speaker
I have to say sometimes, but rarely.
00:25:41
Speaker
I do think there was once that I did, I'm trying to remember what it was, but maybe it was a chair.
00:25:48
Speaker
It was something that I really loved.
00:25:50
Speaker
And I got home and I went,
00:25:52
Speaker
my gosh, this doesn't work at all.
00:25:54
Speaker
So I think I put it in the barn or a closet.
00:25:57
Speaker
And then eventually, of course, a place arrived that it worked in.
00:26:02
Speaker
But I would tell you this one time I went to an auction.
00:26:07
Speaker
This is so crazy.
00:26:08
Speaker
And a little country auction upstate where we go on the weekends.
00:26:12
Speaker
And there was a grandfather's clock
00:26:15
Speaker
beautiful old clock with without the timepiece up on the stage.
00:26:21
Speaker
And I just put my number up.
00:26:22
Speaker
I had no idea what the what the bidding was at, but I just knew I had to have this clock.
00:26:29
Speaker
So the other thing was I hadn't measured it.
00:26:31
Speaker
So when my husband and I got home with it the next day and we're carrying it through the front door, he said,
00:26:39
Speaker
Did you measure this?
00:26:40
Speaker
Do you know if it's even going to fit?
00:26:42
Speaker
Because we have low ceilings in this old house that we live in in the country.
00:26:47
Speaker
Would you believe it just the top of it just fit under the ceiling?
00:26:52
Speaker
In fact, it was perfect because it kind of held the clock in place.
00:26:57
Speaker
But that was it could have been the opposite.
00:26:59
Speaker
It could have been too tall.
00:27:01
Speaker
You know, yeah.
00:27:02
Speaker
And you just have to raise your ceilings.
00:27:04
Speaker
Now, I think for a lot of the homes that you explore in this book, their occupants have really designed them for their own satisfaction, not to try to meet some external standard or imitate the pages of some interior design book.
00:27:19
Speaker
And I wonder, and I think that's, I get the sense that's very much the case for you personally as well.
00:27:25
Speaker
But I'm curious, you know, how does it feel for you to be a visitor in a home that was designed for them, right?
00:27:33
Speaker
Not for you, not to impress you.
00:27:36
Speaker
Obviously, all the stories that I share in this book, there were stories in people that somehow I relate to, even though they might have been more minimal and more modern.
00:27:47
Speaker
But I always love when I walk into a place that's very different, a very different experience from the way that I live with my family.
00:27:55
Speaker
But what I always look for is something that tells a story, that's something that's personal, that relates to
00:28:03
Speaker
relates to their life, that has some authenticity to it.
00:28:07
Speaker
When I first moved to New York so many years ago, we had some good friends that bought this beautiful apartment on Park Avenue, and they had a decorator.
00:28:17
Speaker
I didn't know about people like this.
00:28:20
Speaker
to come in and decorate their apartment down to the bowl of match.
00:28:26
Speaker
Remember match, match boxes?
00:28:28
Speaker
I don't think they have those anymore.
00:28:30
Speaker
And I was just so shocked that how could you turn over your your personal environment
00:28:36
Speaker
to someone else.
00:28:38
Speaker
Now, I'm not deriding or putting down decorators because I think for a lot of people, they just need help.
00:28:44
Speaker
You know, they're like your angels.
00:28:47
Speaker
So you have sort of an idea of what you want and they can help you find it.
00:28:51
Speaker
But this book is about different ways of living.
00:28:55
Speaker
But I questioned everyone in the book, what are the things that you couldn't live without?
00:29:01
Speaker
What are the things, if you've moved 10 times, that you could not leave behind?
00:29:07
Speaker
And why is that?
00:29:09
Speaker
Because they give, they tell a story, they're personal, someone gave it to you, they add a certain warmth and character.
00:29:17
Speaker
And that's what the book is about.
00:29:19
Speaker
It's not just about showing you rooms.
00:29:22
Speaker
It's about getting to the heart of the things in people's homes that really matter to them and make their homes personal.
00:29:29
Speaker
So
Career Reflections and Wrap-up
00:29:30
Speaker
there are homes in this book that are very different
00:29:34
Speaker
you know, from the way that I live.
00:29:36
Speaker
But each one I think has, are filled with personal objects that tell stories.
00:29:42
Speaker
And that's what I'm fascinated with.
00:29:44
Speaker
Tell me about how your career at Ralph Lauren ties into your collecting mindset.
00:29:50
Speaker
I mean, Ralph is a collector himself, of course, and he did the foreword for your first book, right?
00:29:58
Speaker
Yeah, he wrote, that was like in 1988.
00:30:00
Speaker
That was kind of the foot past.
00:30:05
Speaker
into my life there.
00:30:07
Speaker
I've been there for like 37 years, I think now, probably longer than a lot of your listeners have even been on this earth.
00:30:15
Speaker
Anyway, yeah.
00:30:16
Speaker
So the first time I met him and walked into his office, I was home because it was just filled, everything from little toy cars on his desk
00:30:28
Speaker
to artwork that his children had done for him mixed with beautiful photography.
00:30:34
Speaker
I learned so much just looking at his desk and seeing the things.
00:30:38
Speaker
So I guess the first time I met with him, we just had an amazing conversation and he said, you should come and work here and join my family.
00:30:47
Speaker
But I was also working on this first book, American Family Style, which eventually he said, you should do that book.
00:30:54
Speaker
And it was a celebration of family and family style with my family sort of standing.
00:30:58
Speaker
And so I came back to him about a year later after I'd finished the book and asked him if he would write the forward.
00:31:06
Speaker
And he said, I'd love to.
00:31:08
Speaker
And he said, Carter, I'm joining your family now.
00:31:10
Speaker
I want you to join mine.
00:31:12
Speaker
So yeah, I started off there in advertising.
00:31:15
Speaker
I was the head of advertising, you know, so I got to travel all over the place and help to create his world.
00:31:22
Speaker
Because he always says, what I do is about living.
00:31:26
Speaker
It was never and ever about a shirt or about a pair of Jodfers or even a necktie, which was what he started.
00:31:33
Speaker
It was always about the way people live.
00:31:37
Speaker
And everything that's inspired him has come from his life.
00:31:41
Speaker
his wife, Ricky, his children, when they had their first home and he couldn't find cotton sheets or sheets that appeal to him, he decided, well, maybe I should make them.
00:31:53
Speaker
My journey with him has been spectacular.
00:31:56
Speaker
And yes, we've always loved stuff, you know, surrounding ourselves with stuff that matters.
00:32:02
Speaker
The hardest thing is coming up with what will I give him on his birthday or Christmas?
00:32:08
Speaker
Yeah, I do not envy that challenge.
00:32:10
Speaker
Any words of advice for listeners who want to live happily ever after with the things they love?
00:32:17
Speaker
Just don't be constrained.
00:32:19
Speaker
Be free to fall in love with the wackiest thing.
00:32:23
Speaker
If it speaks to you, it will make you happy.
00:32:26
Speaker
I never really think about provenance, although I find it really fascinating to learn more about the things that I have and love.
00:32:36
Speaker
and have loved.
00:32:38
Speaker
But I just, I think my books have always been about the freedom to create a home in environments that are personal and comfortable and warm and are filled with the things that have meaning to you because then
00:32:53
Speaker
They will make you happy.
00:32:55
Speaker
And I've been doing this for so long.
00:32:57
Speaker
But I would also say that, you know, I have a husband and I have children.
00:33:02
Speaker
And I think that you have to think about how you live and leaving a space for people to live and enjoy their lives as well.
00:33:10
Speaker
And think about some discipline.
00:33:12
Speaker
It can't.
00:33:13
Speaker
It can't be a selfish thing because I love so many things.
00:33:17
Speaker
And luckily, I married a man that approves of what I do and loves what I love.
00:33:23
Speaker
Well, Mary Randolph Carter, thank you so much for being with me today.
00:33:27
Speaker
This has been a lot of fun.
00:33:28
Speaker
I loved it.
00:33:29
Speaker
And let's speak again when I start cleaning out that barn and I'll let you know what happened.
00:33:34
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:33:35
Speaker
That'll be a great sequel.
00:33:38
Speaker
Today's episode was edited and produced by Sammy Delati with web support from Sarah Bellotta.
00:33:44
Speaker
Christine Hildebrand is our digital media and editorial associate.
00:33:47
Speaker
Our music is by Trap Rabbit and I'm Ben Miller.