thirteen :: collection

this week's word chosen by shari

SHARI'S response

when i was a little girl, i collected stamps. this was in my eyes a true "hobby collection". it didn't last long. i just wasn't very interested in stamps but i've always enjoyed having some kind of collection. in college i began a teapot collection but have since given most of these away to friends or goodwill.


the latest in my mary jane shoe collection.

now, i have some smaller collections that i really treasure:
vintage tablecloths (preferably from the fifties)
heart shaped rocks
found paper for collages
tiny showcase art (but only by my favorite artists)
mary jane style shoes
optic nerve comic books
art made by blogger friends such as a p2p card collection, an underdog
ink ring collection, and a small collection of abigail percy jewelry.


just a few heart shaped rocks from my collection


music (cds and vinyl) + instruments (tom's collection)


what is it about collections? why do we have the urge to collect objects, images? i think my three biggest collections are my book, music, and photograph collection. i am really interested in the similarity in collecting material objects and collecting images via photography. in thinking about why we collect, i turned to alain de botton's the art of travel, he states, "a dominant impulse on encountering beauty is to wish to hold on to it, to possess it and give it weight in one's life." we collect what we love, what speaks to us in some way. we collect things that help define us.



my newest collection is a collection of handmade white tea/coffee cups. i have two by karin eriksson, one from white forest pottery , and one from diana fayt . i love that they are mismatched and i look forward to serving guests beverages in these beautiful, beautiful vessels. last night when i was asking tom to build a shelf for these cups, he asked if i was intending to have a four cup collection. i said no, i wanted one of paula's raku cups. so he said five then? and then i said six, a nice even number.

that's the trouble with collections. there's always room for just one more. :)

what do you collect and do your collections change?

one final note. see if you can name the band who wrote these lyrics:
"you've got a great collection of things cause that's the best you can do."

MY response

collection. i am a bonified pack rat. maybe i inherited this trait from my mother or my grandmother [or heck - maybe my grandfather. you should have seen the tin of miscellanios nails, screws, nuts, , washers i inherited from him]. i definitely didn't get it from my dad. he's of the if you don't use it throw it out or get rid of it philosophy. the anti-collector. sometimes i'm envious of this.

if i think back to the first collection that i was really ga-ga over as a kid [i also had a stamp collection which i liked, but didn't get deeply into] was STICKERS. how many photo albums did i have full of them? i liked the scratch and sniff kind, the rainbow kind, the sanrio kind, the foil kind, the puffy and soft ones. i pretty much liked them all. i loved trading my friends for the one i needed to round out my collection [oh little twin stars. i have none of those!!!].

{aside :: as we go along in this project i am more and more amazed at how shari and my lives intersect and cross over. the stamps, the mary janes [oh i have those too].... this happens every week!}

when shari picked this word i was a tinsy bit scared. do i really reveal all the different wacky collections i have? what will they in turn reveal about me? which are the most interesting? what do i have the most of? [clothes? shoes? bags? rings? and then there's the books, notions, vintage fans]. what actually constitutes a "collection"?

i pretty much concluded that you must have at least 2 of something for it to be a baby collection. over 10 and you are a "serious" collector. over 50 and my goodness... well... i'm a fan of obsessiveness so there will be no jugement here. there are some things that are life-long hunts, no? and there are some collections that we grow weary of and stop. i wonder what pushes those desires. [i once vicariously fell in love with a friend's collection of vintage typing ribbon tins. THANK GOODNESS i didn't actually get that bug - but it was close].

i think a big part of the fun of collections is the hunt for the objects. that moment of glee when you find something for a price that is unheard of [or is at least in your budget]... or where you find the one missing piece to your collection that you have been searching for.... there is something joyous about coveting... about wanting about dispalying things grouped together.

just for fun i did a search on the word collection on martha stewart's website . 315 entries. [granted not all relevant, but still].

so now i present to you some collections from my casa.


japanese craft books


if you are a long time reader of mine you've seen these before... my vintage bottle collection [large and small]


vintage lunch boxes [i had to stop at 3 as we have no room]


glass beakers


my mini jello tins


one of my favorites... nests.... [3 from my yard - one from grad school]

and risa asked me what i did with all my polaroids. they live in a metal box... like this

i can't believe i didn't even touch on the art... or the vinyl that my husband has... shari maybe we should devote two weeks to this word??