Monday Eye Candy: Evocative Objects

Happy Monday! Today’s eye candy involves an excerpt from Evocative Objects: Things We Think With, a collection of essays edited by Sherry Turkle. These essays analyze the power of objects in relation to our emotional and intellectual states, and are paired with illustrations (70 total) of the objects discussed. Here’s an excerpt from the introduction, written by Sherry Turkle:

“A jeweled pin, simple, European, clearly of the old country, ties a daughter to her mother and her mixed feelings about their immigrant status. An immersion in comic superheroes connects a son to his dying mother and to the times when her love had been at the center of his life. A lonely graduate student is comforted by her Ford Falcon. The car feels like her ‘clothing’ in the world of the street, a signal of her taste and style. When she becomes a mother, it’s time for a trade-in and a BMW station wagon.

Some objects are experienced as part of the self, and for that have a special status: a young child believes her stuffed bunny rabbit knows what she is seeing and saying no matter where she is; talking about the bunny’s experiences is an entrée into adult conversation at the dinner table. And other objects are brought from the outer to the inner world. An artist dies, his collection of Chinese scholars’ rocks is left behind. A rock of meditation, ‘The Honorable Old Man’ rock becomes a presence in the life of his widow, who describes the rock as she would her artist husband – ‘obsession, looking, openness to being surprised and moved, dignity.’”

What's your evocative object? Please share in the comments section.