My memory is fuzzy on this, but sometime around the age of 10, I decided I needed to start a collection. I don’t know why – maybe my grandmother suggested it? Or maybe there was a character in a book I was reading that had a collection? Or my interest in decorating spaces was blossoming and I noticed the objects – plates, jewelry, furniture, Longaberger baskets – other people in my family collected? Whatever the reason, I was determined that I needed to have a collection of my own – and one that said something about who I was. (I’m noting this is a long-running theme in my life.)
Of course, like most kids in the 90s, I had a bunch of beanie babies and Barbie dolls, but that didn’t feel like the thing – those were toys. I wanted something that looked good on display, something that made me happy to see when I walked into my room but wasn’t really intended to be used. After a lot of soul searching – or more accurately, catalog browsing, because this was before everyone had the internet in their house – I landed on a teddy bear collection. This felt like a good fit, because it was my favorite animal at the time, they were easy to find, and affordable for a pre-teen. Because I wanted them to have meaning, I decided I would add to my collection whenever we went on vacation or to commemorate an event, and then each stuffed bear would remind me of something special.
This first collection was an attempt at understanding myself – what I liked, what felt good – and also projecting my sense of self into and onto something tangible. Is this a human thing, do we all do it, or is it just me? My sense is that there’s something innate in the desire to surround ourselves with objects that reflect us back to us, or if not things that act as mirrors, then maybe it’s that which fills us with some kind of reverence and awe.
As I’ve grown up, my interpretation of myself has changed, and so has what I collect. What I’ve come to realize is that my most treasured photos are a collection of ideas, experiences, and favorite places. They are moments of awe and wonder made tangible, ones that I would be afraid of losing if I didn’t have a way to hold onto them. Taking a picture is a way of marking significance and being able to feel it long after it’s over, a way to remember parts of my existence that mattered. Through the process of healing, I’ve learned that one of the most essential things we can do for each other and ourselves is to validate our experience, to remind ourselves that we are real, our feelings are real. To be able to see and surround ourselves with a type of proof that we really experienced something helps us create and understand and build the story of ourselves.
These days it’s not just my own photos that I want to collect. It’s words and art on the whole. It’s the essays and newsletters of people whose work resonates, as well as curating my own. It’s the paintings of friends from way back when, and the creations of people who are living nearby. It’s also vintage pieces from long ago, that I can repurpose into something newly useful. And it’s experiences with people creating movement and sensory practices in real time that become the threads that weave what I make in the future. Collecting all of these things, feeling surrounded and supported by them, is a type of joy that feeds the creative process and makes space for exploring and discovering even more. This is something I hope for all of us, that we notice what makes us feel seen and find ways to engage with the people and objects and places that do so.