“Often, the story of an artifact’s journey is more remarkable than the object itself.”
― Mackenzie Finklea, Beyond the Halls: An Insider’s Guide to Loving Museums

Provenance is the history or source of something. Most often, the word is used in reference to valued objects, pieces of art work or literature. It’s the work of those who buy and sell fine art, antiques, and manuscripts to determine the provenance of each piece, for its value is dependent on its authenticity. Imagine investing in a Francis Cook Mahogany Bombé Slant-Front Desk (c. 1770) for a cool $698,500 only to discover it’s really a clever reproduction (c. 1975). As an antiques dealer, you’d have a lot of egg on your face (and a reputation to repair).

As Mackenzie Finklea claims, however, it’s truly the story of an artifact’s journey that may become more remarkable than the object itself. For the story opens portals into the past where we may enter the lives and times which shape our heritage. And how do you begin to put a price on this?

As a teen, I recall watching my mother clean a piece of used aluminum foil and fold it into a neat square which she tucked in the drawer beside the stove. I’d seen her do this countless times before and had unthinkingly registered it as the thing to do. Years later–and after I’d salvaged many pieces of aluminum foil in my own kitchen–I asked my mother why we did this. Why save pieces of aluminum foil, when in truth, we were only saving pennies? Over coffee at her table, she explained that she saved because her mother and grandmother did, because aluminum was scarce and rationed during the Depression and both World Wars.

Here is the provenance then: from times of want and the lives of women who’d persevered, women who made up the rich heritage of my family to me, a century later, a woman who’s experienced little real want. In the face of their trials, what have I persevered? How have I suffered want? Yet, I devotedly continue the practice of the women before me. And knowing the origin and history of this practice has made me more convicted to continue it. To abandon it would be to break the family chain of remarkable women who passionately made do.

And snow ice cream, that delectable concoction of snow, sugar and vanilla! My father’s love of snow ice cream began as a boy in his own family. Years later, he hauled in bowls heaped with snow to his eager children who waited at the kitchen table. Over the years, we modified the recipe, most notably by adding food coloring to give our treat some extra flair. My mother drew the line at using yellow food coloring, though, because she was always more than a little leery about where my dad had actually gotten the snow.

Today, his granddaughter makes snow ice cream for his great-grandchildren. And though the ice cream is still as good as we remember, it’s the story of the banned yellow food coloring that’s even better. It’s knowing that his great-grandchildren remember and love a man they’d had such little time with. The provenance of snow ice cream is a gift that keeps on giving.

Of course, like most families, we have heirlooms–pieces of furniture, china, art–that carry their own provenance, and some, their own actual monetary worth. I have one grandmother’s pink Depression glass cake plate and the other grandmother’s blue crystal powder box. My siblings, too, have pieces rich in family history. Those pieces that mean the most to us are those whose provenance includes an experience: baking, fishing, eating holiday meals, spending summer vacations with grandparents. When we look at these pieces, we journey back to those relationships and experiences which have immeasureably shaped our lives.

In my last post, I quoted from Robert Frost’s poem, “Birches.” He writes that swinging on birch branches is good both going and coming back. So it is in the sanctuary of provenance. It’s good to go back to the origin of a thing or experience, to understand and appreciate it. But it’s also good to come back, bringing this knowledge and appreciation with you, hoping to push it solidly into the future where it might continue to encourage and shape those who will inherit it.

Provenance

Why do you do this?
my daughter asks.

I’m wiping clean a piece of used aluminum foil,
then folding it into a neat square 
to be stacked with others in the drawer near the stove.
My hands know the way
and make quick work of it.
My heart, too, knows the way
as I remember the words of my mother 

who saves foil still—
as if this is a lesson all must learn,
as if the economy of the world rests on this.

Why do you do this?
As a girl, I asked my mother 
when she patted shiny squares of foil where they sat—
as they always had—
beside assorted pencils and pens, a box of sandwich bags 
and a new roll of aluminum foil,
round and royal, nestled on a throne 
of hot pads.

To make do, she says.

And she tells me of the years 
her mother and grandmother suffered 
though the Depression and both World Wars. 

So, today, I tell my daughter:
We do this because your grandmother and great-grandmother
and great-great-grandmother did this,
because in a world of throw-aways, 
we remember a world of want,
because to make do
is to honor the women we love.

She looks out the window to the yard
as if the lean years wait there, 
crouched and urgent, in feed sack aprons.

And when she turns,
taking the foil into her own small hands,
she holds it like a prayer,
a provenance to live for. 

Shannon Vesely