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INTRODUCTION




A pen is certainly an excellent instrument to fix a man's attention and to inflame his ambition.

-- John Adams, Diary, November 13, 1760

It might be argued that no pen has fixed a man's, or for that matter a woman's, attention more than the quirky writing instruments featured in this exhibit. These pens, variously called float or floaty pens, tilt pens, view pens, Photoramic® pens, magic motion pens or, more popularly, "those pens with the doo-hickey things inside that go back and forth," can be found in curio and souvenir shops across the globe. Indeed, many visitors to the exhibit may have owned such a pen at one time.

Floaty pens were first manufactured in 1946 by the Eskesen Company located in Store Merløse, Denmark. The Eskesen Company, which officially calls these writing implements Floating Action Pens, is still the main manufacturer today. During their fifty year history over half a billion pens have been produced, 90% of the world's supply. Indeed, most of the pens in the exhibit bear an impressed "e" and/or the word "Denmark" on the clip. Eskesen floaty pens consist of two main components: 1) a lower half made of opaque plastic usually containing a retractable ball-point tip; and 2) an upper half called the design barrel. The design barrel is a transparent plastic oil-filled tube that contains a stationary background scene with a moving component on a glider in front. When the pen is titled horizontally to one side or another the glider figure moves across the background scene. These pens are most typically commissioned by either advertisers or souvenir shops at tourist attractions.

The core of the exhibition is a collection of some thirty pens that I purchased as souvenirs during years of travel or were gifts from my more off-beat friends. The appeal of collecting these items, as opposed to say coffee mugs or shot glasses, was their durability and lightness of weight. Impractical or useless souvenirs, such as those tiny teaspoons, and non-reusable items, such as stickers, never appealed to my thrifty nature. Other potential collectibles were rejected due to size or expense (e.g., statuary), safety (e.g., lighters). Indeed, for those who feel the urge to gather memorabilia of their journeys, floaty pens are a perfect item to collect. They are inexpensive, safe, nearly indestructible, easy to transport, only vaguely silly but easily hidden, and quite useful for such things as writing checks.

Other contributors to this exhibit come from all walks of life and geographical regions. They include collectors and distributors from Boise and other more distant locales in the United States and Canada. Nor is floaty pen collecting limited just to North America but is a world-wide phenomenon. In fact, the most famous collector is perhaps one André Perrin of Charleville-Mezieres, France who is due to be in the 1997 Guinness Book of World Records for his collection of over 2,200 pens.

Fascination with and collection of writing instruments is neither new nor unusual. In particular, as a quick search of the World Wide Web reveals, classic fountain pens are a much sought-after item for collecting (see, for example, Penthusiasm). Still, those who collect the far less expensive and, at least to my mind, far more entertaining floaty pens are a breed apart from these. It has been rather reasonably suggested that floaty pen collectors are simply a more practically minded subset of the better-known snowdome collectors. As such, floaty pen collectors would seem to fall into the realm of kitsch-lovers, or kitsch kooks as anti-kitsch people would have it, rather than serious pen collectors.

Kitsch, as defined by Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, is "artistic material of low quality designed to appeal to current popular taste." There are those, including Webster himself, who might argue that kitsch items are not worthy of a formal exhibition. Yet, the very fact that floaty pens have been produced continuously for over fifty years and have been sold across the globe suggests that their appeal transcends at least the smaller increments of current popular taste. I would also suggest that it is the ephemera of our lives, the flotsam and jetsam so carefully gathered from flea markets and airport gift shops, that reveals a more universal and timeless aspect of the human condition.

Is our selection of gaudy baubles to bring home as memorabilia really any different from the magpie's attraction to shiny objects to line their nests? Probably not. The idea of worth based on rarity, hence higher monetary value, is an intellectual construct. To the magpie cut glass is just as attractive as a diamond. To the child a plastic doll might be more loved than a china one. Enjoyment of that which is shiny or colorful or amusing should not be considered simple-minded but rather just simple. So, if you can, allow yourself to enjoy the simple pleasure of this exhibit.

Lee Ann Turner
Art Department
Boise State University

Sources:
Float About
The Floaty Pen Page
Global Shakeup
Ideal Motion Promotion


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