Now that I think about it, deciding on just the right name for my new blog wasn’t really that difficult. It took some thinking and some searching, which meant it was time-consuming. That’s all.

What’s truly difficult is collecting, regardless of how much fun it is. Collecting takes effort. It, too, takes time, it takes money, and it takes space, so there’s got to be a better way for us serious collectors.

If you’re a natural-born hunter and gatherer like I am, you know exactly what I’m talking about: Collecting takes up valuable time.

We collectors like to check the ads for shows and sales, and then we’re willing to drive all over creation hoping to find the latest addition to our troves. Some of us even plan vacations as thinly disguised buying trips to out-of-state shows and sales. Along the way, we’ve been stuck in traffic or lost on country roads and stood in endless checkout lines.

Thanks to the Internet, we’re willing to spend our evenings and other free time looking for treasures that previously were inaccessible to us. We might not have to spend time traveling long distances, but we lose hours surfing the web to bag another amazing find.

Afterward, if we’re diligent, we take the time to inventory our incoming purchases, and then spend more time figuring out where to put them—if we still have space. We might have to reshuffle the items in our collections to squeeze in new ones, or we might even need to rearrange furniture to fit in another curio cabinet or display case.

Paradoxically—if we’ve run out of space—we spend hours carefully packing up our new purchases and storing them away, which actually takes even more time than acquiring the pieces in the first place.

Over time, we spend countless hours shopping for furniture, fixtures, and supplies to house or store our collections. Have you seen how many different kinds of display cabinets are on the Internet? Have you spent time going from one big box store to another looking for just the right storage tubs? I have.

Have you stored your collections one way, but then found that didn’t quite work, so you had to invest more time to start over, hunt down different shelving or containers, and redo the storage system you already created? I have, and I shudder to think of the time I’ve wasted in repacking my treasurers.

If you’re like I am and have large collections but little free space at home, you have only two options: storage or stoppage.

Continuing to collect when we’ve run out of space in our homes is, as my father would have said, putting good money after bad. If we’re honest, we admit that we wasted time and money on collections that we’re now forced to store. We found and bought things we’re not really using. If we continue to collect even after our houses are bursting at the seams, we’re now wasting good money on the items themselves and on packing materials and even mini-storage rentals.

The obvious solution is to stop collecting. We could stop wasting precious time searching the web, driving on the road, or wandering the shows and shops looking for new pieces. We could stop wasting time cataloging new purchases, squeezing them in, or storing them away.

However, if you’re a committed collector like I am, you’ll agree that giving up the fun of collecting would make you miserable, but you might also agree that collecting and merely storing our collections is problematic, irrational, and even selfish.

So there’s got to be a better way, and I think I have it. The better alternative is to properly curate our existing collections according to appropriate themes and arrange them in attractive exhibits—so all our efforts can be displayed for others to appreciate.

That’s why I want to open The Collectors of Western New York Museum and Gallery with the goal of creating a public venue where private collections like yours and mine can be displayed.

We collectors spend a lot of time and energy amassing our collections, for collecting is truly and literally a labor of love. There’s got to be a better way than giving up our hobby or storing away our collectibles.

Why don’t we make one additional effort to go the distance and showcase our talents and prized possessions with others? Of course, it will take some time to round up the pieces in our collections, transport them to the new site, and curate them the way we’ve always envisioned.

But that’s the point, isn’t it? We buy these things because we have a vision for them. We see how the individual pieces fit within our whole collections. We have a vision for how they should be displayed—if we had enough time—if we had enough space—if we had an appreciative audience.

Now we can have all that once The Collectors of Western New York opens. We committed collectors can make the additional effort that will put our amazing collections on exhibit.

I think that would be worth the extra time and effort. Don’t you agree? Wouldn’t you love to see your collections displayed as you always imagined?

Please leave a comment and share your thoughts about your collections.