Habitat: Obsessions is a ten-part series of visits to the surprising non-art collections of art-world professionals.
Artist Ursula von Rydingsvard is well known for her massive wooden sculptures cut with circular saws and other hand tools. She is less famous for her collection—40 years in the making—of wooden objects that fill her studio in Brooklyn and her country house in Accord, New York. “On the whole, I look for things that seem humble and as though they’ve had a long history of use,” she said. The collection, sourced from flea markets all over the world, includes cooking implements, shovels, combs, farm tools, and African masks, which she says “play a major role in keeping my spirits high and in continuing my belief in humanity.”
Below, a look at some of the wooden objects in Ursula von Rydingsvard’s collection.
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Carved wooden shovels line one of the walls in her upstate New York country home. "I don't have intellectual reasons for choosing the things that I choose," she said.
Containers that sit on a shelf in von Rydingsvard's powder room. "The detailed drawings on these I so enjoy seeing," she said.
Her appreciation for wood runs in the family. "My father was buried with a hatchet in his coffin, as he chopped wood until the day he died," she said.
A peasant pocketbook that she found in Poland.
"Imagine embroidering around plates...marvelous," she said, reflecting on their careful craftsmanship.
"These forms pressed cigars into the shape they needed to be."
Chairs that sit in the artist's bedroom.
A work by Sol LeWitt sits amongst some of her wooden objects. She acquired the work in a trade with the artist.
A large wooden mallet that Ursula found at a flea market.
A wooden comb used for brushing animals.
A japanese farming tool.