-Melon- still bank c. 1860

Curator: Well, isn't this peculiar? A pumpkin...that's also a bank? I'm immediately intrigued. Editor: Agreed. The 'Melon' Still Bank, from around 1860, is undeniably charming and whimsical, a true product of American decorative arts crafted in earthenware. Curator: Earthenware...makes it sound so down-to-earth, so unassuming, but those glazes! That green melting into the pumpkin ridges... it's so wonderfully gaudy and sort of unsettling at the same time, don't you think? There's something so *human* about it, almost fleshy. Editor: It is quite tactile. But beyond the surface, there's also a commentary here on industrialization and the changing American economy post-Civil War. It reflects the rise of consumer culture and the anxieties that came with it. Curator: Ah, anxieties! Yes, because saving is never innocent, is it? There's always an undercurrent of worry, a kind of hoarding against an imagined future. It's lovely. Though it reminds me less of an imagined future and more of a weird fall landscape viewed from behind slightly smudged spectacles. Editor: Absolutely. Also, thinking about its function… placing the value of labor, literally coins, into the mouth of this somewhat strange object. It highlights how saving became an act laden with societal expectations. And I wonder, too, about its intended audience; it being an item for the home... Curator: Yes, a home filled with whispered hopes and jingling change. You know, in its time this bank would be placed right in the midst of everything: a hearthside object. Can you imagine the stories it heard? Editor: I love to consider how this one humble, somewhat silly, object sits in stark juxtaposition to broader systems and mechanisms. Curator: Perhaps that juxtaposition is also within each one of us, that pull between immediate pleasures and a sense of responsibility and an imagined future, all rattling around inside...this slightly off-kilter earthenware gourd. I quite love it. Editor: I’ve thought of so many things to consider – consumerism, domesticity, aspiration, labor and social pressures all from this singular object. Hopefully others will also contemplate the significance embedded in this curious "Melon" Still Bank.