Small Objects, Big Stories: Legacy Artist Curates Healing and Connection through “Show & Tales”

Think back to your childhood school days of show and tell—what are you holding? What is it story? Standing in front of your class with a favorite toy, seashell, or souvenir and sharing the story behind it revealed a piece of yourself and connected you with your classmates.

As adults, the need to connect with people and share our stories remains strong. By design, carefully curating objects through object-based storytelling has long been a popular way for museums and historians to co-create experiences while telling vast histories. Story-based object curation is also a healing tool for healthcare workers, business leaders and those seeking to connect people to reduce isolation and loneliness while bridging cultural divides. In narrative practice parlance, a "third object"  is an external item—such as a work of art, a poem, a photograph, a video, or an excerpt from literature—that serves as a focal point for discussion, reflection, and connection among participants.

Martie McNabb is a personal historian and visual artist who believes small objects have the power to unlock larger, universal experiences like love, loss, and growth and help us realize we’re more alike than different, regardless of cultural backgrounds or life experiences. She ascribes to the practice that the relationship between the possessions we value and the narratives behind them is unmistakable; objects gain value and meaning when a story is added.

“Storytelling is not a matter of words,” she says. “Indeed, words are only one particular – and arguably small – part of the story world. That images can tell stories is universally accepted, and we do not need to translate such stories into words in order to understand them.

Things that Matter

Martie says she considers herself a “legacy artist using other people’s stuff’ as my medium.”  She’s a lover of stories that get attached to these things.

“I’m also a dancer, a wife, a daughter, a sister and a lover of people and travel,” she says. She lives part-time in her campervan named Brooklyn, a nod to the borough in NYC where she lived for 28 years. Martie’s career path includes being a former NYC public high school biology teacher and an ASL interpreter.  

“I'm passionate about building deeper connections, community and legacy through story-sharing gatherings about the things that matter,” says Martie, who divides her time between Hartland, Vermont (where she and her mother live) and Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she lives with her wife.

Through her workshop business, Thingtide Show & Tale® , Martie invites participants to bring objects to elicit their own stories. She believes listening to and sharing stories can help individuals feel less isolated and more understood, which is crucial for emotional healing. In her podcast, Things That Matter with Martie McNabb, she invites guests to share the stories behind their cherished objects. Each episode delves into personal narratives that highlight the significance of seemingly ordinary items.

One Story at a Time

During her workshops, participants bring photos and cherished objects to in-person and virtual story-sharing gatherings. The themes range from the personal items and keepsakes of loved ones who have died to personal collections, letters, thank you notes, pets, tats and piercings, bags, and hats. The potential theme for a “Show & Tales” event sponsored by a corporation, non-profit, association, institution, organization, or individual is limited only by the imagination.

Many corporations and other organizations have found that the pandemic—and working remotely—has significantly impacted people's feelings of connection and employee and donor engagement. Martie offers a solution: “Storytelling is more than words,” she says, quoting the following:

“Objects are images, but much more than that, they are sensuous things touching us with their affective power, imbued with an aura of the unspeakable. They may provide hard forensic evidence or fleeting feelings that are difficult to grasp, but without things there can’t be any stories.  What matters is not so much the voice, but the listening, the ability to perceive, to sense, to tune in, to feel, to dream. Everything and everybody has a story to tell, if only we can hear it. Artists, seers and poets can be useful guides,” she adds. This is a piece of prose by Solveigh Goett, textile artist, researcher and collector.

Finding a Name for What She Does

More than 25 years ago,  she joined the Association of Personal Historians,  a professional organization primarily serving memoir writers, oral historians and video biographers. “For all those years, I had to explain myself and my work to them. I finally found a title that resonated; Legacy Artist,” she adds.

Creating a Roadmap for Her Own Story

“The things that became dear to me were relationships, experiences, and the power of a story”
– Martie McNabb

When she’s not hosting story-sharing gatherings, Martie travels 2,200 miles across the country as a caregiver for her mom and her mother-in-law.  In her 60s, she’s also navigating a long-distance marriage to the love of her life who she met more than 30 years ago and reconnected with during the COVID pandemic.

Born in a military family in Okinawa, Japan, Martie moved nine times before turning sixteen.

“As a result, I did not collect familiar childhood objects like art projects and toys. The things that became dear to me were relationships, experiences, and the power of a story,” she says. “Haunted by the photos and memorabilia people leave behind, I began hosting object-inspired story-sharing events called Show & Tales to encourage participants to reveal a little piece of their personal history through the Things they keep. Sharing out loud with others keeps the memories alive, passes on the history, and enables people from all walks of life to build connections.”

She adds: “I want to change the way we look at our Things. Things may not matter, but the stories that get attached to them often do. Instead of focusing on what we need to get rid of, let’s focus on what we want to keep. The Things you surround yourself with tell a piece of your life story. “

Narrative Mindworks Questionnaire

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness? Perfect happiness to me is that feeling I get when I am doing the work I was born to do.
2. What’s next on your bucket list? Creating multi-author art and story books called Things That Matter using my 26 different themes. Bringing my Our Team in 30 Things story-sharing exhibition and gathering to companies and organizations to build deeper connections, community and legacy. And changing the mainstream narrative around what “legacy” means!
3. My greatest accomplishment? Staying on my entrepreneurial path, believing in myself and my work. AND always supporting and cheering on my family, friends and community!