Finders Keepers
Early humans, as hunters and gatherers, collected food, tools, and materials for shelter. As a Very Advanced Modern Human, my hunter-gatherer instincts show up as an obsessive drive for collecting delightful nonsense. If that’s not progress, I don’t know what is. I like to joke that I collect collections, but I’m not sure where the joke is exactly, because I do in fact collect…collections. I specialize in items with low or no monetary value - things that could accurately be described as “trash” or “junk” by people without my sophisticated taste in garbage. I don’t remember being much of a collector when I was little, beyond the obligatory Pog and Beanie Baby collection every 90’s kid had. But whenever/however it happened that I was bitten by the collecting bug, it has mushroomed into a substantial part of my personality. Beyond the thrill of the hunt, which never gets old, I also love arranging my collections into pleasing compositions, and sometimes featuring them in my art and creative experiments. Here are just a few of them:
JOKER CARDS
I started collecting joker cards around 2018. Most of these are from thrift store card decks, plus some that were gifted by friends, and few from eBay. You can see the full collection of 150+ jokers here.
TINY TOYS
SECURITY ENVELOPE PATTERNS
Security patterns are printed inside certain envelopes (called security envelopes) to protect sensitive information during mailing by making it difficult to see through to the contents inside. The patterns, which are typically blue or black but can be any color, have fascinated me since 2008. They even inspired me to create a series of ink drawings. As physical mail is replaced by email, these get harder to find, making them all the more special. View the full collection here.
