OBSESSION

Texas antiques dealer Steve Wiman loves the irony— and silent stories—of his stone book collection. Written in Stone

As told to CLAIRE BUTWINICK Photograph by STEVE WIMAN

Steve Wiman, artist and owner of the Austin, Texas, antique shop Uncommon Objects, often says that he has a “collection of collections.” The Texas native currently maintains over a dozen assemblages, ranging from balls of string to Mexican clay bird wall pockets, all gleaned from thrift stores, antique shows, and the sides of railroad tracks. For years, Wiman incorporated his vintage tchotchkes into sculptural pieces (he has an MFA in studio art from the University of Texas), but in 1991, he cofounded Uncommon Objects so that other collectors could showcase their own idiosyncratic treasures. One of Wiman’s largest collections consists of nearly 100 decorative stone books dating to the mid-1800s.

I REMEMBER THE FIRST STONE BOOK I BOUGHT, who I bought it from, and the city in which I bought it. It was in 1994 at an antique show in Nashville called Heart of County. I had never seen anything like it. It has religious images including a cross, a pair of hearts, crossed feather pens, and shaking hands, dating back to 1886. I think headstone carvers made some of the stone books I’ve collected because a lot of them use the same precise lettering style and wording. Alternatively, some of the pieces are complete folk art, made by untrained hands; they’re almost crude. I have everything from sublime attempts to beautiful marble. They’re like what you see when you go to a cemetery.

One thing I love about such books is that a lot of them have dates. With textiles, you can learn about the fabric of a quilt, but to have antiques [marked with dates,] like stone books, is rare. I was completely enamored and taken by them. I paid more [for that first book] than I should have, but it was magnetic for me. I like the idea of stone books because they take something—rock—that’s available and free and turn it into something sentimental and meaningful. Some commemorate a wedding, a baptism, a birth, or a death. Then there are some that are souvenirs of places—Colorado’s Garden of the Gods, for example. They’re each made by different hands.

It’s poetic how something that looks like a book, full of knowledge and resources, is stone cold. I like the irony of that. One of my favorite titles is Hidden Secrets. If you pulled it out of your shelf of real books, it would be inaccessible. A lot of the stone books in my collection have chips or cracks. Some collectors want to avoid that, but I embrace the irregularities because they [are signs of] authenticity and genuine age. h

WOODLARK, PORTLAND, OREGON

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