collecting 101

Ever since childhood, I’ve felt that the greatest luxury one can have is a collection. My mother’s artwork utilizes toys, dolls, miniatures, vintage porn magazines, Melmac dishes and other collections that I would help her hunt for and curate. At one point she developed a friendship with Jarvis Rockwell, son of Norman, who devoted his life to filling a warehouse with pristine toys and collectibles, which he arranged into gleaming pyramids. Why? Because he could. Because it made him happy. Becausehe didn’t want to be compared to his father but instead to use what his father had left behind to follow his own bliss. It was walking around that warehouse, stuffed to the gill with his treasures, that I understood that adults may need to grow up, but there’s no need to grow out of pleasure.

Over the course of my life, in no particular order, I have collected things such as:

-Archie comics

-Cabbage Patch preemies

-Murano glass animals

-miniature cacti

-Jane magazine

-vintage tween paperbacks

-small plastic babies

-antique Kewpies

-Delft pottery

-pots with breasts!

-vintage nightgowns

-She-Ra Princess of Power dolls

-Roberta di Camerini handbags

-Jack Lenor Larsen fabric

-Holly Hobbie merch

-modern painting by women and queer people

A collection need not be pricy or exclusive- it’s just a bunch of things you love that are speaking to each other!

Here are some collections that you can start!