#5 Eric Oglander on finding things you love, antique fly swatters, spoons, and more
Plus a DREAM couch, a Comme pleated set, the perfect bar set up, a wonderful lamp, and more
Hello! Welcome to McLotto, a furniture newsletter for nice pieces from the tri-state area and beyond. Find the perfect club chair, question the value of a lucite table, buy an old Comme button-down, and delve deeper into Craigslist.
This week Eric Oglander joins the McLotto universe! An artist, collector, dealer, and so much more, Oglander was kind enough to hop on the phone and answer some pressing questions about furniture and antiques. I’ve been a fan of his work since I was in college scrolling on Tumblr so this interview was truly a delight. To see more of his collection, check out his Instagram @tihngs or make a trip to his shop in Ridgewood and get a nice meal at Porcelain afterward. If you enjoy McLotto send it to a friend or keep it a secret. 💋
NYC/ NJ PIECES
In my humble opinion, this is the perfect couch….elegant and sweet, I’m sad I can’t fit it in my room. 150$
A beautiful rosewood credenza that would look nice in any room. $850.
This cute hanging custom bar cabinet that doesn’t require studs! Looks like a fun party trick, folds out nicely with some pink shelves. $75.
A very cool Artemide Sintesi lamp that’s cheaper than the Chairish/ 1st Dibs/ eBay options. $385.
A BEAUTIFUL Ethan Allen Sofa in crushed velvet that looks wonderful for lounging like this. $500.
A classic bookshelf. $700.
INTERNATIONAL MCLOTTO: FISH COMBS, COW DISHES, AND PLEATS!
I got some wonderful candles and silver Japanese plates at this store Jane on East 9th street last weekend and now I’m on the hunt for a candle holder. This one from Dansk is nice and can also double as a fun sculpture piece when you don’t have candles. TIP: Usually if you add something to your watchlist on eBay the buyer will send you a discount. I also love this one for a single candle.
There’s a whole series of clear animal dishes on eBay that I love like this cow one. You can’t go wrong with any of them and they’d look great with some Maldon salt or butter in them. The bunny ones are also beautiful.
A nice vintage Yohji trench that I would love to buy on The RealReal.
A PLEATED skort/ short set from Comme….incredible for summer and so versatile!!
Ended up in a weird eBay/ Etsy hole last week of antique fish-shaped combs… this one is very cheap and fun.
A nice vintage Bottega knit polo that would look great with anything and is only $140.
AN INTERVIEW WITH ERIC OGLANDER!
Eric Oglander is an artist, collector, and dealer in New York. In addition to many other things, he’s also the author of Mirrors, a book from his online project Craigslist Mirrors, as well as the owner of tihngs, an antique store in Ridgewood. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
When did you first get into antiques and furniture?
I started buying and reselling objects when I was about 18. Then I moved to California when I was 20 and I was broke and needed money. I started going to flea markets in Santa Cruz, California, and buying and reselling anything that I could make money on. But my parents are both artists, my brother is an artist, and I'm an artist so in searching for stuff I could just make money on, I stumbled upon objects that I loved for myself.
When I started collecting I didn't really know that there was a market for this stuff. So I started collecting and I got to a point where I just amassed too much. And then it wasn't until I was in New York two years later that I started selling antiques on Instagram. I sold stuff immediately but I was selling stuff then that I wouldn't touch now. I’ve become way more particular.
What changed? What were you looking at early on that first attracted you and what do you look for now?
When I first started, I would say that there was more mid-century designer stuff. And then over the years, I've become much more interested in make-do objects, things made out of necessity or with characteristics that only come from having been around for hundreds of years.
I know with Craiglist mirrors you talked about becoming obsessive about certain pieces and I feel like I get that way about a few things like antique gym benches and old toy cars. Is there anything else you regularly check on an eBay or Live Auctioneers watchlist?
Yeah, I have a collection of homemade fly swatters that I'm pretty obsessed with and they're hard to come across. There are various themes I explore in collecting, but the fly swatters are up there. I also collect snapshots and there are numerous themes that I look for, one of them being snowmen.* I have around 300 snowman snapshots and some are going to be featured in a Phaidon Christmas book soon.
I also collect photos of snakes that have been killed by people. I've been interested in snakes since I was like nine years old or so and I'm really fascinated with people's fear of them, their desire to kill them, and their unwillingness to learn more about them. I have a pretty huge collection of photos of people holding snakes that they've killed which is pretty niche. I'm very, very slowly working on a snake book with some people about using snakes as a lens into people's fear of the unknown and how that makes them act.
And then I have maybe five or so photos of objects that have been altered or created by natural events. So I have like an 18th-century CDV photograph of a bunch of children's shoes. These children were struck by lightning and the lightning blew out the toes of their shoes. Supposedly all the kids survived which is great. I also have a cabinet card from the 18th century have a section of tree that was pierced by another piece of wire during a tornado.
Your practice deals with make-do necessities, and pieces that a lot of people don’t really know how to classify or would honestly probably throw out. How do you know what you're looking for? And how did you build up a language or understanding of what to look for and how to preserve it?
A lot of the stuff I love is just purely based on aesthetics because I have this language around making sculptures. All my sculpture work is very small scale, pretty minimal stuff that focuses on texture and form and material. So I kind of approach viewing the objects that I find in the same way that I view my sculptures. Sometimes you'll find something that has the right age and you know, it was made out of necessity or whatever. But it doesn't have the right form. So it's this amazing, really nuanced curatorial editing that happens with the objects in the same way that I function when I'm making art. So I can just know when something works for me, and sometimes I can't quite put it into words. But it’s form, it’s texture, it’s material. It's why the object was made.
How did you build up an inventory of items and where do you find them?
I still have stuff from when I was like 20 that I found in California. I found this 19th-century spoon in a five-gallon bucket for $2 at the flea market and that's still one of my favorite things. I'll probably keep it forever because it did kind of mark the beginning of this ‘aha’ moment. Like oh, this is garbage to most people but it's so beautiful formally and also was just made out of necessity. Brimfield is definitely my bread and butter.* And then I buy a lot of stuff on eBay. I have like 200 saved searches on eBay that I scroll through every day.
What would you recommend to people that are trying to build up a collection of pieces or just starting to furnish their apartments?
I think most of all just buy what you love, but I think a lot of people don't know what they love. And it's kind of complicated. I think a lot of people are just riffing off of what they see on Instagram…thinking that if they buy what other people are buying that they're gonna have a space that they're happy in, but I don't think it works that way. Look at a lot of stuff, and just in the act of looking at objects and being critical of them you’re going to continue to get more and more particular and kind of hone your eye.
If you want to read more of my interview with Eric, shoot me a DM and I can send you a copy.
Thanks so much for reading.
XO MC
** Check out this article about Eric’s snowman collection here!
** Brimfield is located in Massachusetts and one of the biggest antique shows in the US. I highly recommend taking a trip out there during one of their shows in May, July, or September.