Ms. Vlaminck's Penguins

This collection was not one of choice, but it's one that I love. I don't know when I really began collecting Christmas Penguins but the collection grew rapidly over Christmas 2013.

I think it began in Walmart. Thanksgiving had just ended, and the Christmas decorations and products were on the shelves waiting to be bought as people began getting ready for the holiday. I was walking through one of the aisles, not looking for anything important when I saw a set of four penguin ornaments that were tagged for a dollar. I threw them in the cart without even inspecting them, so I didn't notice the chips on the penguin with the green hat and the missing string on the one with the present.

 I had always liked penguins, but it wasn't what I would have considered a favorite at the time. My family knew I liked them, and a few close friends knew too. I posted on Facebook that I had been excited about the purchase. I was just trying to show my excitement about decorating for the holiday.

I took them home and hung the four of them on my little tree. My boyfriend at the time noticed them right away when he came to visit and informed his family about my little penguins.

Christmas came around and suddenly I was receiving stuffed penguins and penguin ornaments and penguin socks and  penguin mugs and penguin blankets and penguin in-scent burners, even a penguin sweater.

Since then, I've also received penguin pot holders and penguin birthday cards.

I love my penguin collection.

The LoZ Collection

It's a collection, not an obsession, I swear. Ever since my sister first let me play her Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening game for the very first time, I've had a love for the series. Though while growing up it was overshadowed by my love for the Pokémon series, as I grew older my love for Pokémon still remained, but LoZ started taking a stronger hold in my heart.

I gant remember exactly which game was the first to start my collection, but I believe it was either The Minish Cap or Wind Waker. Either way, after that I obtained the collector's edition, which had remakes of the NES and SNES versions of the really old Zelda games: Legend of Zelda, Legend of Zelda II: The Adventure's of Link, Ocarina of Time (which to this day remains to be my most loved of the series with Link's Awakening being a close second) and Majora's Mask. Then Phantom Hourglass came out and I had to get that one too. Spirit Tracks came out a while later but I ignored that one at the time because I wasn't such a huge fan at the time.

As new games came out I ended up getting them. My collection started to grow to outside games and game guides when Skyward Sword came out, as it came with a special LoZ wii remote. It was then that my desire to collect grew rapidly, for after Skyward Sword they announced the release of the special LoZ 3ds with Ocarina of Time game- which I wanted so badly.

As time continued I ended up collecting all of the games ever released, the Hyrule Hystoria, the LoZ 3ds, the LoZ WiiU, the Master Sword (steel and real), the Hyrulean Shield, two keychains, the collectors edition game guide treasure box with bookmark and authenticity certificate, and a hoodie. I aspire to get the Dark Link set and a few fabric posters, along with any other decent merchandise that comes out.

So... This weekend my... ahem... Collection, grew. I was at GameStop, getting ready to check-out when I see little Minish Cap cellphone figures... And so I spent a good five minutes doing my hardest to look through the packages to find the figurines I wanted.... Not obsessed.

You collect rocks? They're not just rocks!

I have been collecting rocks of all types ever since I was a little boy. It started when I was young and would go camping with my parents. I would always find some cool stones and take them back home with me. When I had gotten a little older, I started buying different rocks at touristy little shops we'd wander into on family vacations. It wasn't until about four years ago that I started taking my collection of rocks more seriously. I had come to learn that crystals were special kinds of rocks that held different metaphysical properties. Doing some more research, I also found out that some of the most advanced ancient civilizations from all over the world used crystals for their mystical qualities and benefits. Having learned all sorts of amazing information about crystals, I went to healingcrystals.com and ordered seven different rough cut crystals. I bought a crystal for each of the seven charkras found in the human body according to Eastern Medicine. Since buying those first crystals, my collection has grown to around seventy-five individual crystals ranging from Amethyst to Moldivite. My favorite crystal though is the heart shaped piece of Tiger's Eye that my mother gave me. I tend to carry it around with me more than all the others. It  serves as a reminder for me to always keep a heart of gold even when times are dark.

Starting from the top and moving clockwise: Tiger's Eye, Sodilite, Lapis Lazuli, Moldivite, Tiger's eye, Carnelian, Clear Quartz, Angelite, Amethyst, Rose Quartz

Vinyl Obsession

When I was young, my bedroom was a hodgepodge mess of random things hanging from the walls. One of these items was an old vinyl record with Strawberry Shortcake on it. As a five-year-old, this was the coolest thing in the world. None of my friends were cool enough to have a vintage Strawberry Shortcake record hanging in their bedrooms. As I got older, my fascination with the Strawberry Shortcake record faded; however, I developed a fascination with the 1960’s. That included a fascination with record players and vinyl records. My family did not have a record player; however, my mom had saved some of her 45’s in an ice cream bucket and when I discovered those, it began my collection of records. I began scouring antique stores for records that I could add to my collection and my collection steadily grew. In the past few years my collecting has slowed down considerably. I still enjoy looking at records in antique stores, but I’m much more selective now when buying records. Last year I went through all the 45’s and vinyl records that I have and made an excel document so that I could figure out how many records I actually have in my collection. The final count came to 73 albums and 126 45’s. When I was in middle school my parents bought me a record player and I now have my record player and records proudly on display in my room. Few things beat the sound of vinyl on a rainy day. It’s definitely a collection that I have enjoyed having.

A glimpse at my collection

My Strawberry Shortcake record

A Collection of Collections?

In some ways, I would definitely call myself a collector... but I'm not a very dedicated one. I tend to go through phases in which I become attached to a concept and surround myself with items related to it. For example: I have an abundance of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle merchandise one one of my shelves, and another is decorated with Joker related comics, DVDs, and figurines. I also have a bundle of old German books that I picked up from various secondhand shops. I can't read them very well, but I hope to one day put them to good use! Somewhere in my house is a vase filled with bottle caps that I gathered together when I was wee... I certainly collect things! I'm just not very consistent about it.

It's difficult for me to keep one collection going for very long. Often times, when I perceive my collection as finished, the magic disappears and I either get rid of it or abandon it for a while. Don't get me wrong-I'm a total packrat and I appreciate the value of nostalgia. But I prefer giving my junk a new home to letting it collect dust on my shelf.

One of my more conventional and currently growing collections is my collection of Maneki-nekos. I only have an armful of them right now, because I limit myself to purchasing them when I visit different Chinatowns across America (and hopefully related attractions in other countries some day). They're said to bring good luck and, frankly, I find them adorable. They serve to remind me of the adventures I've had in the places that I've travelled to.

Inherited Collections

I suspect collecting skips a generation in my family. Both of my parents were collectors. My mother adored Barbie dolls, beanie babies, and even plates while my father had road maps, baseball cards, and stamps. Perhaps growing up under the weight of their collections turned me away from what I generally deemed clutter.

Of course, after my father passed away last year, I unintentionally found myself inheriting his collections. Though it all just seemed like even more mess to deal with, I did find myself taken with his drinking glasses. I’d found them spread out between several boxes along with newspaper articles and Christmas garland.

My grandmother explained that while my father was stationed in Germany, (sometime in the early 80’s), he would buy and mail home interesting glasses that he’d come across. 

He had big ones...

...small ones...

...plain ones...

...intricately designed ones...

...and this freaky thing.

Fleeting Collections

Throughout my life I've gone through phases ranging from hoarding a bunch of useless junk to purging all the non-essentials, and then the cycle repeats. Usually the hoarding is short-lived. I don't often think of myself as much of a collector, though I do pride myself as an accumulator of fine books. Those I grow more fond of with age. The rest of my collections I seem to have outgrown.

Over the years I compiled collections of CD's, DVD's, and briefly Blu-rays, but when I decided that these were largely inefficient, expensive, and fragile I switched entirely to digital media collections. I've lost several of those as well. This seems to be the way for me with collections; they just don't last.

When I was a rather young I used to catch moths from my lawn and the school yard. Sometimes I let them go right away, catch and release. Sometimes they sat in a jar or a plastic bottle until they all perished. I had an acquaintance with different insects pinned in display cases. Perhaps there's a connection. But I never kept the dead bugs. That would be weird.

My Embarrassingly Large Collection of Shoes...

     The obsession started when I was in the 7th grade. I had just started participating in sports and wanted to have the coolest pair of sneakers out of my entire class. What started out as me conning my parents into buying me more than one pair of volleyball shoes, quickly spiraled into a full blown addiction. I became obsessed with sneakers, and not just athletic ones. I would buy Pastrys, which were a brand of shoes that Joseph Simmons,(member of Run-D.M.C) daughter's had created. I have three different purple pairs, lime green sneakers, plaid, blue, black etc. Some are high-tops  or lace up, and some have bling or decorative beading. After a while, my obsession turned to sandals and boots. Currently, I have around 30 pairs or more of just sneakers, sandal, and boots; this is not including my vast collection of heels. Before taking this class, I would have never really thought of my obsession with shoes as a "collection" but now I realize that I have been an avid collector of shoes for almost half of my life.

My Collection

From the time I went to The Phantom of the Opera for the first time, I decided to start collecting the Playbills you get at the performances because I knew I would be seeing it again and again. So far, my collection contains the Playbills from the Omaha Orpheum Theatre, the Minneapolis Orpheum Theatre, The Venetian in Las Vegas, and even the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. I was fortunate enough to not only get everyone's autograph from the Phantom on Broadway, but Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber's as well. I also have the Les Miserables Playbill with all of the casts' autographs, too. Not only do I collect Playbills, but also the different movie and novel versions of the Phantom.

Collection/Obsession of Books

My Grandma Joan is the reason that I have an overflowing bookshelf. At a young age she made it her mission to take me to the biggest bookstore in her hometown so that I could experience the magic of browsing through bookshelves and picking out books. I always chose books that had the coolest covers whereas she would actually read the back to see what adventure she was getting herself into. When we went shopping I was allowed to get as many books as I wanted and she and I sat at a coffee table and drank hot chocolate and we thumbed through our selections. Ever since that day I have always loved going to bookstores even if it was to just look at what was new.
Grandma Joan is not only to blame for my obsession because after my shopping excursion, which led to my new found love for books, my family would shower me with Barnes and Noble gift cards and books for every holiday or Birthday. I burnt through the gift cards fast and before I knew it I had an entire bookshelf filled.
I could never read my books as fast as I could buy them. My mom had to enforce the rule that I could no longer buy books until I finished what I had. That rule didn't last long and my collection grew from a physical collection to a digital collection. Now I have a virtual and physical book collection that continues to grow.

An Unexpected Development

Growing up, I always kept my fingernails short. I used to like digging in the dirt of the unoccupied softball diamonds while my uncle played a game mere feet away from me.  My mother would clip my fingernails because of this, so there would be no room for dirt to settle under my nails. 

I never questioned this, or thought to live my life any differently until I got to high school. In high school, all of my friends had long fingernails - or at least they were longer than mine. So I attempted to grow mine out, but once dirt started to settle under my nails, I would use the broken edge of my student ID to pick at the dirt. Instead of paying attention in class, I would be sitting there, picking at my fingernails with that blunt edge that was so easily available to me. 

Then it hit me. What would stop me from picking at my nails? Fingernail polish! If I couldn't see the dirt, did the dirt really exist? Would I pick at my nails in class if they were pretty and painted? It was a theory I had to test. So just before my senior year of high school, I went out and bought the first bottle in what would soon become an overwhelming collection. Within months, I had more fingernail polish in my possession than I had ever had in my life. More than I would (and will) ever be able to use in my lifetime. But, as I soon found out, my theory had one flaw: chipping. 

Nail polish chips. That's just a way of life. Even if you use a topcoat (which can seriously smear any intricate design you try to do, and has even been known to dull the color of your polish), the polish will eventually, not being able to withstand the daily wear and tear of life, crumble under pressure and flake off. There's nothing you can do, really, to avoid it. But as soon as my nail polish started to chip, I would scrape at my nails until there was no polish left, leaving that nail clean and the dirt underneath visible for all to see. 

This began a never ending cycle of painting my nails, noticing that it was chipping, helping it along the way, and repainting my nails. Ever since my senior year of high school, I have painted my nails at least once every two weeks. My nail polish collection is unnecessarily large and an extreme waste of money. I'm not sure when this obsession will end, but I sincerely hope it does soon.

Trophy Time

As a child I played hockey from the time I was six years old and like all six year old children, we received a medal for playing in each tournament plus and extra medal if the team finished first, second, or third. Throughout the years I had collected a rather large amount of medals, ribbons, and trophies including some of my most impressive rewards, two plaques signifying my position on the All-State teams. Unfortunately during the last major flood, most of the collection was lost during the clean-up and likely thrown away with the trash. I still have the plaques however, which I hope to use to start another collection. Perhaps my child's rewards, someday down the road.

The Playlist of Doom.

Throughout the years, I have been a huge fan of the video game series of Metal Gear Solid. I can not get enough of it. I have posters, collectible figures, and most of the games. What really sets the series apart, in my mind, is the music that they make for the soundtrack and the trailers. Sometimes the trailers are even more iconic than the songs in game( Example Mike Oldfield's "Nuclear" on the MGSV trailer). I have been accumulating a playlist of song on YouTube dedicated to all the songs of MGS. I think that i have at least 100 songs in two different sets of playlists right now. Every time that I see a song that goes well with the game, that comes from the game, that is remixed from a song from the game, or that appears in one of the games trailers, I grab it on YouTube and throw it into the playlist. Things like this are normal......right?

Kooky mugs are worth the money

My freshman year of college, last year, I bought one distinct mug, just so I could enjoy some tea. However, I'm not keen on spending money on a plain white mug. No it has to go a bit beyond that. The first mug I purchased was a fairly simple little, white mug with a quiet design of small round dots. It was really simple then but it started the spiral. The next mug I received was a TARDIS shaped mug from the infamous Doctor Who series. I had received that one through a friend for a Christmas present. Collecting mugs makes it fairly easy for people around you to come up with a gift for you. There are some simple, yet odd ones you can find in Walmart if you forget that someone's birthday is the following day. Right now my collection is fairly small, keeping in mind that I still live in a college dorm. It consists of about five mugs now, but it's something I've found I thoroughly enjoy even if it only means glancing at a picture of a cool mug online that I can only dream of getting some day.

Childhood Collections

Barbies, stuffed animals, Pokémon cards, leaves, quarters, rocks. You name it, I collected it.

Okay, maybe I wasn’t that much of a curator when I was younger, but I did have certain collections of select objects.

It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but my first collection was Barbie dolls. I did not start collecting them as choice, however. When I was little, my birthday was quickly approaching one year, and my parents asked me what I would like as a gift. I told them that I wanted a Barbie. I think the decision of telling my parents that bit of information was one of the worst decisions I had made at the time. After that one birthday, I kept receiving more and more Barbies. Sure, I would play with them, and I had fun playing, but it started to get out of hand. Not only would my parents gift me Barbies for my birthday or Christmas, but my other relatives soon followed suit. I have a picture filed away in a photo album somewhere that shows me next to a whopping 20 Barbie dolls. Twenty. It’s not like I was obsessed, I just didn’t know how to stop the same gifts from coming every year.

Stuffed animals are partially the same story. Of course, what young girl doesn’t like stuffed animals? I loved them, and so I didn’t mind getting them as presents. My neighbor at the time, Retha, would give me stuffed animals not just for my birthday or Christmas. Should would give me them any time I saw her. Other people gave me stuffed animals as well, and my collection piled up on the shelves of my closet. I have stopped receiving those fuzzy creatures, but I still have a ton in my closet. I can’t bring myself to get rid of every last one because many hold such powerful memories that I can’t just throw away.

Pokémon became super popular among my peers, and I would see cards for sale in every store. So, just to feel like I was in the “in crowd,” I would ask my mom if I could have some. I started a mini collection of these cards not even knowing that there was a game behind it all or even that there was a TV show or Gameboy game. I simply collected them because I liked the pictures on the cards. I believe I still have them, but I never learned how to play.

Leaves were a collection started when I became more observant about nature. My mom told me that she used to collect leaves when she was young. So, I started a collection just to see what it would be like. I would find a cool-looking leaf on the ground, bring it in the house, press it for a few days, and put it into my collection binder. It was actually the same binder my Pokémon cards were in. Collecting leaves didn’t last long, and I think I only collected about 15. It was a lot of work!

I grew up a little more, and my interest switched to money. Not for the purpose of buying things, but for the purpose of collecting. I thought it was fascinating that each state had a unique quarter. As a present, I received a map of the U.S. that included slots to put each quarter for every state. I collected maybe half of them and then gave up because I wanted to use them, not collect them. However, in a way, I think I still collect quarters because I save more money than I spend. So, I suppose my collection of money will be a continuous process throughout life.

I started my rock collection when we moved to our new house in 2001. I would find interesting rocks and, for whatever reason, keep them in a basket on my dresser. One year for Christmas, I received a rock polisher kit, and that made my obsession escalade. I would collect and polish more rocks than my basket could hold. I soon had three baskets on my dresser, and I was so proud of each individual rock in that collection. Then, one day I just decided I didn’t want to collect rocks anymore. I still have one basket of my favorite rocks, but I haven’t collected or polished any since.

As you can see, as my interests changed when growing up, so did my collections. Some collections were inspired or maybe even forced upon me by those around me, and some where just an interest to me. Either way, I know I did collect things, and I know that it was a positive experience when growing up.

But do collections stop when we grow up?

My Eclectic Collection of Rock and Roll Memorabilia

Anyone who knows me already knows my love of music and seeing it live. One thing that has happened over the years is I have collected a large amount of rock memorabilia. This all started back in the late 80’s when I went to my first show, which if anyone will believe, was Metallica. This is where I bought my first concert tee-shirt. Throughout the 90’s I went to a few shows here and there, and bought a few items. It wasn’t until I went to my first festival in 2004 that I really caught the bug. First I started collecting tie dye clothing. At first they were concert tee-shirts, but eventually broadened my horizons by buying handmade tie dyes. I prefer these because they are all unique and in my eyes made with love.  At this point I have over 40 tie dyes and concert tee shirts. Even after they are wore out I never throw any of them away, I just retire them. I keep them because each shirt has a story to tell, someday I want to figure out a way to preserve and display them.

Other rock memorabilia that I have collected is recordings of live music. The majority of it is that of the Grateful Dead, but I do have countless hours of live music from other bands. I do this because there nothing like listening to the spontaneity of live music. It can be anything from an amazing jam, to those special occasions during a festival when a special guest comes on stage and plays a few songs with said band. Most of my collection is from downloads from a site called Sugarmegs that specializes in live downloads. I also have a collection of “tapers” recordings. These are usually cassette tapes recorded by someone in the crowd during a show which started back in the late sixties in the Grateful Dead community. This practice was highly encourage by the Dead to spread their music, and has carried on and been accepted my many other current bands. I do also occasionally buy a live recording. An example is every time I go see the remaining members of the Dead, they have it where you can pay money before the show, and pick up a live soundboard recording of that show at the end of the night. All together I would say I have about four to five hundred hours of live recordings.

The last memorabilia that I collect is band art. This can range from show posters, to a charcoal drawing of Jerry Garcia that I bought from a vendor at a music festival. These are probably the most valuable items in my collection because they are original, or in the case of show posters, are put out in limited numbers. Many of these I have matted and framed. The most expensive piece that I own is an original Acid Test Graduation poster signed by Ken Kesey, fellow Prankster Caroline “Mountain Girl” Garcia, and Grateful Dead Drummer Mickey Hart. I have actually been offered a substantial amount of money for it, but I will never part with it. I would say that I have at least 15 fifteen art pieces thus far, and this is what I am most interested collecting in the future.

I truly love and admire all the memorabilia that I have collected over the years. It’s true that some of it does have value, but my true admiration comes from talking about the memories behind every piece that I own.