Our ship has come in…to the living room

Mark and did a little home decorating a couple of days ago. This is relatively unusual for us, as we tend to decorate once when we move into a place and pretty much let it sit from there on in. (My idea of decorating is to pile books everywhere, but that’s a subject for a different blog post.) We do add the occasional painting we buy when we travel, although that’s rare because we already have enough art in storage to decorate a three-bedroom house. But we decided to add the ship you see in the picture below. And, as always, there are stories behind the item, the purchase, and the culture that gave rise to our ship.

Let’s start with the ship. At heart, this is a model ship covered with salt – in Spanish, un barco de sal. Our town in Spain, Torrevieja, produces a great deal of sea salt and welcomes many ships into its harbor each year. For over 150 years local artisans have celebrated those economic engines by making barcos. To do so, the artisan builds a wooden ship, soaks it in the local salty lakes, takes it out to do some trimming, resoaks it, and finally finishes and mounts it. The glass case protects the ship and allows for easy display of the final product.

Mark and I have seen these ships in shop windows over the years we’ve been here. We’ve always admired the craftsmanship but didn’t discuss buying one until we attended a local film festival last month. One of the shorts featured the story of a grandson who wanted to attend university even though his aging grandfather expected him to take over his ship making business. The film drove home the understanding that only a handful of artisans make these ships now, as the younger generations have sought other lines of work or have left the area altogether. So we decided to go to one of the two shops that still sell these models and buy one to adorn our bookshelves. So there it is, and there we are.

And our story illustrates the cultural reality underpinning so many trades and activities. Granted, generally I’m not one to pine for the past; most of it was smelly, disease-ridden, and deadly oppressive to people who were not white cis males. But I do mourn the loss of some of the cool arts that flourished in the past. Who wouldn’t want a mosaic floor in their living room, or a hand-carved front door with lions and rosettes greeting your visitors? This sentiment is one thing that keeps me blogging, actually. There’s no AI here, folks; I’m choosing my words, organizing my ideas, and editing my work by myself. The salt ship and I may be anachronisms, but we’re both proudly sailing into the future. Or the living room, whichever comes first.