I’ve had this little question in my head for a while about the distinction between various kinds of amateurism – on the one hand, there are “hobbies” – stamp collecting, gardening, cooking – and on the other there are capital “C” creative leisure pursuits – being in a band, exploring photography, going to life drawing classes, or writing erotic fiction.

I’m finding it useful at the moment to think of these two fields as “high” and “low” amateurism – because they remind me in various ways of the ways modernity was characterised by a split between “high” and “low” culture – a split that survives in mutant form.

The distinction seems to be mapped onto a couple of different fields – both High Amateurism and Low Amateurism (hobbies) are often unpaid practices, but their professional or elite counterparts occupy very different positions in terms of cultural value. A “real” photographer or novelist is considered authentically part of the arts or creative industries in ways that professional gardeners and cooks are not – despite the recent development of articulations between these “service” professions and the creative industries, i.e. the rise and rise of the funky celebrity chef (pukka!). Secondly, there is the matter of distribution and reception – across most fields of amateurism, the “hobby” or non-professional pursuit is most often carried out and is restricted to the individual domestic sphere – in the twentieth century amateurism was articulated closely to domesticity and the family: amateur film, for most of us, conjures images of capering children in sunny backyards caught on grainy Super 8.

So anyway, it is collecting that most sharply brings this distinction into relief for me. By which I mean filling up the lounge room cabinet, the bedroom cupboard, or the garage with rocks, or bits of dead cars, or obsolete electronic musical instruments, or beanie babies, or barbies, or whatever. On the other hand, there is the legitimized and professionalized practice of curating – the reasoned custodianship, selection, arrangement and/or exhibition of objects for public consumption. And the ability to explain the reasoning behind the choices made.

I’m with Henry Jenkins when he says that the point about digital technologies isn’t so much what new forms of, or access to, production they enable (cool as that is), as it is the radically expanded forms of distribution, communication and networking they enable. So it isn’t making the home movie that is important; it’s being able to exhibit it online, being able to discuss it with like-minded people, being able to participate in learning communities and creative networks that counts in terms of the impact of new media.

Going back to the hobbies: web publishing and networking give all the amateur cooks, and gardeners, and quilters, and rock collectors, and genealogists, the opportunity to shift their domestic hobbies into public, networked space.

Which is all a really longwinded way of saying how absolutely bloody fascinating I find Heavy Little Objects, a new-ish blog (or, should I say, online exhibition?) cataloguing, exhibiting and providing expert commentary on a personal collection of junk, art, pop ephemera, and, well, stuff:

I collect heavy little things.

Tools, parts, toys, instruments, tchotchkes – the weight of some new thing in my hand, often small, metallic and well machined, compels me to add it to my life.

It’s instinct by now. I can’t say why these things are important, or why I haven’t bothered cataloguing them until this day – they almost litter my office, my pockets, my car, my home. But this is as good a place to start as any.

If this isn’t public curating, then what is?

Oh, and I really, really want the theremin for myself. Thanks to Anne for the link.