Josie Tiffany: Collection Project

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ART 318:  Advanced Drawing

Collection Project

Josie Tiffany

3.11.2020

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Speak about your past experiences with collecting.  Discuss the process you used to develop your collection project.  Why did you choose these pieces? How did you arrange your objects and images for critique?  Include 3-5 images of your collection?

Collecting has always been a hobby of my dad’s, or rather a hoarding obsession.  However, the collection has its ups and downs in terms of sentimental value. For instance, when I was in middle school, my dad showed me a box that contained objects that represented important historical moments during my lifetime.  What included was a New York Times paper clipping of the 9/11 attack, Bush became president, the US engagement in Iraq, the space shuttle crash that killed 7 astronauts, and more. The purpose of this collection was to share the mementos and the physical memories that were consistent in my timeline.  From there, it not only felt like a responsibility but rather a continuation of my own existence that was manifested into a tiny, cedar box.  But sometimes, collections can easily go into disarray by their creator when they are created with no sentimental value, but rather a sense of obsession and need.  An example is my father collecting all the small things from my childhood. While it may sound sweet at first as he can recollect the nostalgia of that moment, it is replaced by his obsession of not wanting to throw anything away.  For instance, we still have a foam bowling ball pin from George Jackson’s first grade birthday that’s chewed up from my dog, the half dismembered body parts of barbie from my 3rd grade birthday cake topper, some toy ATM machine that cannot function anymore even with a battery, and more.  Such things would not be called a collection as there is no organization and an absence of feeling towards those objects.

For my specific piece, I choose tea bags as they are frequently objects that are thrown away after they have served their purpose of satisfying their consumer.  Therefore, I wanted to create a collection that demonstrates the ironic twist of keeping an object that has “lost its purpose” or deemed “unusable”. By putting it in a collection, it challenges the thought of whether there is inherent meaning to the subject and possibly changing the perspective of that individual.  Therefore, I want to challenge the audience on their perception of “the forgotten vs. the present”, “the disposable vs the timeless”, and “invaluable vs valuable”. I hope to arrange them in a sophisticated fashion that juxtaposes the action of throwing them away without a second thought. Thus, a linear fashion would be my preference in displaying the collection.