An Anthology of Knick Knacks

Part One

By this point, you’ve likely seen the little gremlins taking over the internet and causing a slew of video essays on Youtube about hyper-consumerism. Labubus are the kind of “so ugly it’s cute” thing that drives people insane with cute aggression, and I am not immune. Usually, when something is this popular, there’s a part of me that chafes against falling into step with the crowd, stubborn in my refusal to partake until years have passed and it’s no longer trendy. For instance, it took me seven years to finally watch Game of Thrones (and of course, I’m obsessed and still pissed at the way the series ended). But, I am nothing if not a sucker for a mysterious box with a toy inside, and I will get my hands on one at some point.

My studio is filled with the prizes from these mysterious blind boxes; on my wire shelves, on the set of drawers on my desk, on my computer stand. I started collecting them years ago when Erick and I lived in Austin and Kinokuniya opened near the office I worked at at the time. We would put ourselves on the waitlist at the conveyor belt sushi place next door, and then peruse the Japanese bookstore while we waited for our table. Inevitably, I would leave the store with a brightly colored box and tear it open to reveal my treasure the moment we sat down at our booth. Each box had maybe six to eight possible toys inside, and I had a rule I’d only buy it if I liked all of the possible designs, so that way I’d never be overly disappointed if there was a stinker inside.

This means I’ve amassed quite a collection of these silly, little vinyl toys. And this obsession with collecting knick knacks is not exclusive to blind boxes. All things handmade, odd, possibly old, and at one point likely cherished are not safe from my grubby paws. Objects with unknown origins, with stories I’ll never be privy to, attract me like a moth to a flame. I am weak for the things that remind me of the best parts of my childhood.

It was with these collections in mind that spurred my new series of work, in which that excited feeling of discovering something unexpected is memorialized. But, as I sat down this week to write all about that series, I realized that the actual pieces that are cherished in my home, with stories and memories attached of their own, have never had their stories told. And so, this marks the first entry into my Anthology of Knick Knacks.

Treasure: Turquoise Bastet Statue
Acquired: Natural History Museum of Utah, Egypt: The Time of Pharaohs exhibit, cir. 2021
I wanted to be an archeologist as a kid and I was obsessed with all things Egypt. My favorite deity in the pantheon of Ancient Egyptian gods was Bastet, the goddess of protection. Of course, as a child that wasn’t why I liked her so much; she was my favorite because she was always depicted as a lioness or cat. It was later, while revisiting this fascination as an adult, that I came to appreciate what she symbolized and stood protection over. When I saw this statue in the museum gift shop, I couldn’t leave her behind, still high on the excitement of an exhibit that reminded me of my childhood ambitions.

Treasure: Ceramic Trivet with Botanical Illustration
Acquired: Estate sale near Mueller neighborhood in Austin, TX, cir. 2020
One day at work, a few of us decided to leave the office for lunch and packed everyone into my car for our adventure. I can’t remember where we ate, only that we were in the Mueller area, and on our way back to the office, someone spotted an Estate Sale sign on the side of the road. Less than eager to return to work, we all agreed to stop and see if we could find anything good. And boy, did we. It was the home of an elderly woman who must have been a girl after my own heart, because her home was chock-full of figurines, vintage dishes and clothes, and heirloom quilts. This trivet, along with several other things I absolutely did not need but wanted desperately, came home with me that day. More importantly, though, was the fun we had in making a split-second decision to pull off the road and shirk our boring office jobs for a little longer. The trivet later cracked in transit when we moved from Austin to Salt Lake City, but it has been glued back together and retired to a shelf where it can live out the rest of its days as decoration.

Treasure: Scales by Joseph McCoy, Lithograph, 1997
Acquired: University of Texas Art Building, Lithography Studio, 2015
At the end of my final semester of college, I was tasked with cleaning out the flat files that we all used for storage. Apart from the current students who still laid claim to several of the drawers, there were a handful of drawers that had belonged to previous graduates and TAs that had never been cleared out and full of stuff. Imagine my surprise, then, when I found a lone print in one of these drawers from 1997. I was struck by the composition, the well-executed chine collé, and the colors. I had no idea why it was still there in the studio, after all these years, and made me think about all the little pieces of me and my friends that could live on in the studio long after we’d left. (Specifically, the visage of a much younger Harry Styles, One Direction-era, that we’d gotten from a machine at an arcade and stuck to one of the doors in the studio because we thought it was funny.) The print was removed from the drawers, along with the other random stuff inside, to make room for a new wave of students, and I decided to bring it home with me, rather than let it be thrown out. It’s accompanied me through six moves over the last ten years, and I’m still struck by it.

Proof of life in October 2015 - clearly someone did not appreciate our destruction of school property and tried to scratch Harry off the door, but he persisted. I’d like to think he’s still there, watching over the baby litho students struggling to grind their stones correctly, ten years later.

Thanks for sticking around if you got this far. You deserve a gold star and a mysterious box with a toy inside.

And now, I must know, do you have any collections? Anything with a mysterious past, or a memory attached? Oh, or better yet, is anything haunted? Seriously, I’d love to know about the haunted stuff.

Until next time,
Whitney