Interview #2: Kylie B., Spiritual Counselor and Vintage Collector

To collect is to gather the things we find most fascinating, feathering our nests like magpies with shiny objects: souvenir spoons, baseball cards, Japanese woodblock prints, Stax records.  Usually, these things have had a life before they came to be ours - and often they will have a life after us, arriving in destinations unknown after we ourselves pass them on, hand them down, re-gift them, or leave them behind.  Does an object carry some of its previous life with it?  I thought Kylie might know.

Kylie, a PA during the day and medium and spiritual counselor the rest of her waking hours, has an impressive trove of vintage clothing so large it takes up an entire room in her flat in Adelaide, Australia.  When I met her many years ago, we were both brand new to London and living in a bed-bug infested hostel - each of us pursuing whatever dream had brought us to the city in the first place while scratching madly in the June heatwave.  Still, while I wilted in a sweat-soaked cotton heap, Kylie remained glamorous in leopard skin platforms, sequined capes, and  feathers, all purchased in tiny vintage shops and flea markets around the world.

She kindly gave us her take on object energy, Italian horror films, and the past lives of her favorite things.

Interview #1: Caitlin Duennebier, Illustrator

'Dandelion my first boyfriend put in my hair, four-sided dice, golden peanut, shell, red sea glass,
rabbit stamp, flattened penny, key to my childhood home.'

I first met Caitlin Duennebier in 2007, when we were both art students at the London College of Communication.  I liked her immediately - because she was a genuinely lovely, gentle person - and because she had one of the most beautifully unusual sensibilities I had ever seen.  Her illustrations are both sweet and slightly terrifying, and her childlike drawings and paintings of unsettling characters and imaginary folk tales have been featured in places as diverse as beer labels and on e-commerce site ASOS.

One of the most intriguing things about Caitlin is her collection of found objects, and her flat in London looked like the municipal archive of a long-forgotten city of crazies.  Decor included a tatty glove in a large glass frame on the wall (more on this later), several teeth, and a bunch of passport photographs she had picked up from the sidewalk.  Rescued photographs of strangers were framed and displayed as though they were close family members, and small plastic figurines of cowboys and Indians were scattered in frozen scenes on top of the toilet and refrigerator.  It was nothing short of magical.

Caitlin took some time out of preparing for an upcoming exhibition of her work in Boston to talk me through some of her collections - teeth, Lucky Strike cigarettes, and tiny people included.

Hey! Your stuff is important.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a museum as "A building in which objects of historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural interest are stored and exhibited."  You - yes, you! - are the curator of your own collection.  We all have a tiny archive of our own, and this blog is designed to explore the world of collecting, assembling, gathering, and hoarding...in all of its strange and beautiful glory.

Our aim is to help you curate and conserve the things which are important to you.