Shopping for Statues, Deities, and other Unique Items

Hello!  At Tanmaya Enterprises, each of our staff members collects and enjoys many types of statues from various parts of the world, and we also search for both American-made and non-American statues when we shop at garage sales, antique stores and individual sellers.  We've learned a few of the pitfalls and the good stuff along the way, so perhaps this will be of some help to someone else out there, even when buying on our auctions or our other locations.

If you are collecting for strictly aesthetics, it can be a little easier.  If you are collecting for authenticity and aesthetics, that's a little tougher.  If you are collecting for actual spiritual or worship purposes - this depends on what your needs are.

When shopping for items of decor for your home, you have a rich variety to choose from.  You can consider your family ancestry and origins and go from there.  You can choose by color- if you particularly like turquoise and silver you may want to look into American Indian /Native American possibilities or in some cases items related to Mexico.  If you like yellows, saffrons, reds, blues, purples- well - you could consider collecting from the cultures of Tibet or India where bright colors are often appreciated and beautifully used.  If you want to choose by material, you could consider lovely olive wood nativity scenes or brass and copper Hanukkah items from Israel. 

When shopping for decor AND authenticity, you have to do a little more research.   You may enjoy the reds often used in China and see a kiosk in a mall selling all sorts of red resin fat buddhas, dragons, lions, and coins.  They may be relatively well-made or they may have been made quickly using poor molds leaving lines and flaws.  And, let's say that you'd hoped to purchase a large figure of a Chinese Buddha that has possible antique value.  Well, first of all- you probably already know that your mall kiosk isn't the best place for that and the items we're describing don't sound like they fit the bill.  But, if you're new to this and you ask the salesperson, they may not be knowledgeable about the age and material of the item and that is where you want to do some research.  I'll try to get some more detailed guides out about how to do this, but for brevity in this beginning guide, I'll leave it that you want to pay attention to the ads you read online, read some books on the items you want to collect, and try to use good judgement in this area.

Now, if you want to collect items for your own spiritual and/or ritual use, this leaves you in a place that is quite flexible but you also have things to be wary of.  If you are new to a type of spirituality and you are creating a meditation room, an altar, a shrine, a dojo- whatever fits your style, you first have to decide on what you want and what you can afford.  If you are on a limited budget and you can be perfectly happy with reproductions of ancient deities that are brand new and/or made from a mold, these can often be found for good prices and are sometimes very nice looking.  In this case, you just need to study the type of ritual items that are common to the culture you want to work with.  If you wish to make a nice shrine to the beautiful Virgin Mary and you just want a few candles to light around her, you can find some gorgeous and inexpensive choices from wood to china and even sometimes to plastic if well done.  If you choose a complex spiritual tradition that has a large pantheon such as the Celtic pantheon, this is going to take some study.  First of all, many modern books written about neo-paganism are mis-leading about what deities are truly archetypes and what deities represent certain aspects.  These books will often differ on many topics as well and can leave you confused.  Some will say that certain colors must go in the four directions, and others will say the exact opposite.  So, if you wish to explore a spiritual path of this nature, do try to do lots of reading.  I respectfully suggest as one possibility a book known as "Drawing Down the Moon" by Adler.  Though some may disagree with me and have every right to their opinions, I found her book useful in helping me with some of the inaccurate information out there.  If on the other hand you want to choose an ancient religion with a very standard type of practice, there are plenty of possibilities.  Zen buddhism can be a simple choice for one who needs a peaceful path and a plain collection.  A standard black zafu and zabuton (meditation pillow and cushion) and perhaps a nice Japanese-style buddha, a simple wooden table, an incense burner and maybe some lightly scented Japanese joss incense sticks and you could be good to go!  India, on the other hand, has a wide variety of deities although many Hindu teachers say that they represent the One Deity and that the many gods and goddesses are helpful when we need to focus on a particular problem.  Lord Ganesh, the elephant god, may help one to overcome obstacles.  Mother Goddess Lakshmi may help one with financial problems.  But, whether you believe these deities are aspects of the One Divine or some other path, Hinduism is a path of great variety and inclusion and will generally be quite tolerant.  This also means that if you go searching for Hindu-style statues, you will find just as much variety there!  You will again have to decide if it matters to you whether or not they are Indian made, and you will have to decide if you want to focus on one particular deity that you need in your own life, a small collection of deities, or try to collect the entire pantheon including the truly ancient Vedic ones- personally- I would find this a fun undertaking but perhaps impossible unless you create some of your own and are very patient! 

The bottom lines that we suggest though are these: 

Consider your reasons for searching for a statue or other ethnic or spiritual item.  Is it for yourself or a gift?  Is it for decor or use? 

Consider where you wish to display your items and make sure that you try to be inoffensive to the beliefs of others both in placement and sometimes in the choice of statues themselves.  Some pantheons have little difficulty with statues being anatomically correct and unclothed, whereas other paths prefer their objects of worship to be robed, painted with clothing, or even bathed daily and decorated with fresh flowers.

Consider your budget and plan accordingly.  Older items may be less expensive if they are just a few years old, or may be priceless if truly antique.  Newer items may be inexpensive if the materials and craftsmanship allow it, or they may have to reflect months or years of creative work on a single hand-carved item even inlaid with precious materials.  Items shipped from overseas can sometimes be less expensive- though shipping costs themselves can inflate this and the seller cannot help this.  In other cases, items shipped from overseas have been created in monasteries by hand and may be costly in import and craftsmanship.

Consider how much you know about the culture you wish to buy from.  If you just enjoy being different and want a dorm room or writer's loft filled with unique items, you may just focus on colors and price and the weirder may be the better!  (Look at Tanmaya's Oddities section when we have some available.)  If you do with to be more of a scholar in a particular culture or belief system, spend time reading books and magazines by trustworthy authors before starting your purchasing. 

At Tanmaya Enterprises, we will try our best to identify our sculptures and other items as best we can by name if we known it, with pictures if at all possible, and with as much information as we can about the culture.  If we have information about the item's background we'll give what we can, though realize that we often do our own purchasing at the same risk as anyone else, and we try not to pass on mis-information if we can help it.  Sometimes even experts are fooled by items, and we don't claim to be experts but we do study the cultures and we use resources from a degreed English scholar to a studious anthropology enthusiast to books and magazines of all sorts.  The items that we create ourselves at Tanmaya or that are created by other artists for us are marketed with all the information we have as well, and will be identified as one-of-a-kind of limited-edition when those terms are accurate. 

We hope you've enjoyed this guide, and if you see something here that you disagree with or find inaccurate, let us know and we'll give it due consideration.  We do this because we love it and it is our passion so we are always interested in learning new things.

So, get shopping!