The Real Deal On Collecting

Years ago, before I had busted out as my designer-y self, Martha Stewart totally freaked my shit out over the idea of having a "collection." I *wanted* to collect stuff, but it sounded scary, and serious and overwhelming.

What the fuck was I supposed to collect? This decision seemed akin to deciding who you were going to marry. Choose wisely, cause you'll be collecting this shit for THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.

Martha's collections were epic, natch. And if I was going to collect stuff too, of course I wanted to collect it like a fucking rockstar. But I didn't know what to collect, and I was afraid about pulling the trigger cause then I would be stuck with all this shit and maybe it wasn't the shit I *actually* wanted to be collecting? Drabware? Eh. Fiestaware? Meh?

So I did nothing. And then more nothing. And I got older and older and had no collections of anything. And then it just hit me one day: FUCK THAT NOISE.

And then I figured it alllll out! And it was easy! And I was collecting shit left and right!

Here's what I learned:

*Don't get caught up in the need to come up with ONE BIG IDEA of stuff to collect. If you really respond to something, than of course, go with it. But if you're feeling unsure about what speaks to you, don't sweat it. Just notice what you gravitate toward on ebay and at Flea Markets over time and you'll likely start to see some patterns. And even if you don't, that's ok too! When someone asks me what I collect, I usually say "lotttts of shit," cause I've totally given up on the idea that you need that one killer answer to that question.

*You can have a collection of 3 or 4 things and THAT'S IT. This was the biggest thing for me. I thought if I "collected" something, I needed to spend all my waking hours searching the globe for this thing to add to my growing collection. It felt like a gigantic, scary commitment. But it honestly doesn't have to be. You can have areas in your home with little collections of stuff that doesn't require an entire china cabinet. For instance, one day on ebay I found this fab old gold apple. I have no idea how I stumbled across it, but I did and I loved it and I bought it. And then the following week, I came across this cool lucite apple. And then I was like "hunh...I guess I like apples!" So I bought two more. And then that was it! And I moved on! But now I have em all sitting on my stove and they look kinda cute all up there in a row?

*You CANNNNN change your mind about what you'd like to collect! This is a free country, ppl! This was another tough one for me to get over, but it's so true. You change your mind about your clothes, and restaurants you like, and TV shows you watch, so why can't you change your mind about collecting?! If you find that you are no longer moved by something that you've been collecting for awhile, STOP FUCKING COLLECTING IT! It's ok! This shit is supposed to be fun, so the minute its not fun for you anymore move on dot org. You don't need to necessarily get rid of the thing (though you can do that too!), but its so ok to just decide to stop looking for something and move on to the next.

*The things you collect don't all need to sit together in one spot on display. They CAN be if that's how you wanna roll, but also you can have your collection spread all across your space. I started collecting vintage bookends before we moved into our aparment. All different shapes and sizes, though as they turned out they are mostly gold. And these suckers are all the hell all over our apt. Some of them are on bookshelves, and then some of them are just chillin in random spots (like this gold horse head bookend on top of a pile of books):

I love the look of a big grouping of things in certain spots, but don't feel like you HAVE to do that. In my mind, Kelly Wearstler is pretty much the master of cool collections of stuff:

And everyone gave her shit for this dining table because it was so impractical to have to move all the statue heads, blah, blah, blah. STFU ppl, it looks hawt:

Anyway, just my two cents. I now think collecting shit is fun, and I've totally forgiven Martha for screwing me up for so many years.

Here's some random shit I've been collecting lately:

*vintage needlepoint animal figures in our front hallway. I started buying the completed canvases on ebay and then framing them myself (here's a parrot, a lion and a cheetah; I also have a deer and a dog out of frame):

*vintage Basset Hound prints, also in the front hallway.

*I'm OBSESSED with vintage coffee table books. I love all coffee table books, but espesh the vintage ones. I have stacks and stacks of them all over the place. As they're normally super expensive, I usually wait every summer for this gigantic book sale at this church in our nabe in Park Slope, BK...they sell coffee table books for like $3 to $5 bucks and I end up just stocking up like its my job.

*vintage swirly glass paper weights that chill all over the place (I only have 3 so far).

*I don't really collect teapots, but my gram does and she's given me a lot of them, so now I kind of collect them by default. I love the mini ones the best.

*while I love all animals, I have a weird thing for Elephants...so I'm a sucker for anything elephant related. I just bought this killer old wicker Elephant towel rack, which I plan to hang on the back of the front door to our apt and use for my dog Oliver's leashes:

Ok, your turn: what do you collect??