Artist Richard Marquis is a modern-day emperor of glass, working in a studio on Whidbey Island, Washington that is part 16th century kunst und wunderkammen and part retro auto body shop. His encyclopedic collection of ordinary things—from baseball gloves to boat motors, lanterns to license plates, tools to toys—reflects the artist’s interests and becomes inspiration for his work. Stacked in shelves, hanging from the rafters, filling old dishwashers, these discarded ephemera get a new lease on life in Marquis’ kingdom. The philosopher Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) reflected on the idea of kunst und wunderkammen in his essay “On Experience,”
positing that “…the most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to be the grandest miracles
of nature.”