The Beauty of The Unremarkable
Sometimes a trip begins with a destination so alluring that the journey becomes a side-note. Yet other times, there are drives that take you though places rarely on anyone’s lists where the beauty is so quiet, it can be easily missed.
This happened to me recently on a drive from Illinois to Missouri. It would be a stretch to call this an “exciting roadtrip”… we didn’t encounter dramatic mountains, sandy coastlines, or wooded roads that lead to unexpected finds. However what we did encounter were miles of highways dotted with small towns, grain silos, old-fashioned farmhouses, and fields of corn stretching into the horizon.
At first, our drive felt like simply getting from Point A to Point B. But somewhere along the way, I began to notice the ever-changing sky, and that perhaps the landscape deserved a bit more attention. There was a subtle, quiet rhythm to the fields where rows of crops were planted in subtle patterns. Where old barns and weathered farmhouses felt full of stories waiting to be told. And where if you looked closely enough, it appeared as though the wild grasses had choreographed a dance. I realized that there was something peaceful about the lack of spectacle.
This revelation made me think about how often we look for beauty in the obvious places. Naturally, we are drawn to objects that have a certain presence… pieces that immediately catch your eye because of their form, material, or scale. But what keeps us looking is often something quieter: the irregularity of a handmade surface, the evidence of a hand shaping clay, the variation in a piece of wood, the way light moves through imperfect glass. These are details that reveal themselves slowly.
The landscape outside the car window felt much the same: nothing was particularly precious; and yet that was precisely what made it beautiful.
There is something deeply grounding about seeing a landscape that has been shaped over generations without being designed to impress. The fields are planted because they’ve needed to be planted for generations. The barns and farmhouse are where they are because they have housed supplies and families for years. And the country roads connect one small town, one community, to another. The quiet and subtile beauty comes from functionality, repetition, and the marks left behind by the those who came before.
These are qualities we return to again and again at Trove.
We believe that the most meaningful objects don't necessarily need to be loud or perfect. Rather, those object carry something within them: a sense of place, the hand of their maker, a connection to a material or tradition. Their beauty often becomes more apparent the longer you live with them.
Perhaps that is why an uneventful drive stays with you?
When we travel, we tend to remember the destination: the beautiful hotel, the remarkable food, the breathtaking view from the terrace. But sometimes it is the space in between that changes the way we see things because quiet reflection can be found in the most unexpected places.
Driving through Illinois and Missouri reminded me that beauty doesn't always need to be discovered. Sometimes it simply needs to be noticed.
And perhaps that is one of the reasons we collect objects. Not simply to surround ourselves with beautiful things, but to bring small reminders of this sort of beauty into our everyday lives: the quiet, imperfect, enduring beauty that becomes more meaningful the more closely we look.
