On Owning and Collecting

My ambiguous relationship with owning and collecting things is a topic I have been meaning to debate out in the open for years. Two themes influence my thoughts on the matter: the battle of consumption vs. creation, and minimalism. Let’s untangle this and start with the latter, which I hope is more tangible and relatable.

1 Minimalism or: Am I a Collector?

I’d like to approach this question from both sides of the spectrum: I am not a hoarder; the idea of amassing physical items induce anxiety in me more than anything else. I am no prototypical minimalist either, because sometimes it is important to me to own something beyond my most basic needs.

Before I move on, I want to stress that I do not think that collecting and minimalism are mutually exclusive or that either is associated with certain character traits. The goal of this exercise in self-labeling is to make more conscious and sustainable purchase decisions. I believe that carefully deciding what items enter my physical and mental realm is a requirement for leading a creative life.

Working assumption: I am a mini collector. I think a photo of my most-valued mini collections help me to drive this point home.

What are the qualities or effects of the pictured items that make them desirable to me? Or to use Marie Kondo’s words: Why and how do they spark joy?

Restricted

For example, I am not interested (anymore) in collecting video games or obtaining a full set for a certain gaming console. That is too broad and overwhelming. It would create pressure and take up too much mental space. I like when the scope of items is restricted and the notion of completeness easy to achieve. Like owning all Pokémon games of generation 1 and 2 for the Game Boy. Achievable, wholesome, sexy.

Nostalgic/auto-biographic

Talking about the Game Boy brings me to the next point. I value items that emit nostalgia and teleport me to a certain era in my life. Bonus points, if I can alter, expand, or otherwise reshape items to make them my own. Case in point: Phaidon’s out of print Wallpaper City Guides serve as a guide, but together with my handwritten notes and tickets/receipts tucked into the book sleeve they transcend this basic purpose. They become part of my biography and looking at them again satisfies my inner chronicler. They might even become eligible to be passed down to someone.

Perishable

I am okay with my items having a limited shelf life, and I am not exclusively talking about the flavored oils in the picture above. I am as fascinated by how much time I can spend on researching a purchase, as I am by how fast I can get rid of things. This characteristic is what keeps me from declaring myself a “true” collector.

Supporting

I enjoy buying things as a token of appreciation and support for the creator. The best example of a (not so mini) collection of mine that proves that point is my vinyl collection. I know that artists make almost no money by playing shows; selling merchandise and (non-streaming) music is how you survive as a musician. By buying vinyl I hope to play my humble part in bringing more of the music I like into this world.

Well-designed

This is no stand-alone quality, but an overarching feature that elevates an item for me. I am a sucker for clever, beautiful, quirky design!

This list creates the impression that I have it all figured out. I am a mini collector. I should stick to obtaining stuff that meets one or more of the aforementioned properties. That way, the amount of mispurchases and junk ought to be minimal. But why do I periodically declutter then? And what does that have to do with collecting? I think the answer lies with my susceptibility to two occupations of collectors: the hunt and curation.

Hunting and Curating

Let me tell you a story about the five issues of StadtRevue’s hidden cologne in the photo above. It’s a lifestyle magazine that covers Cologne’s nightlife, dining, and cultural institutions. I stumbled upon issue 4 when I had recently moved to the city and I quickly fell for the tone, imagery, and general vibe of this little publication. It was easy enough to get my hands on the next issue, but issues 1–3 had been long out of print.

What did I do? I called the publisher, emailed Cologne’s tourism agency, set search alarms on Ebay and Kleinanzeigen, asked around in book shops and museums. And sure enough, I managed to procure all five issues. In hindsight, I can’t help but laugh about myself: The effort of this whole endeavor bears no relation to the added value of the magazine! But the pleasure of the hunt for an item far exceeds its intrinsic value.

The hunt is a tricky bastard, as it lures me into purchases that I wouldn’t do if it wasn’t for the digging. I suspect the closeted archaeologist in me to be responsible for my interest in an artifact’s tales, provenance, and whereabouts. If I hear about an obscure video game, an out of print book, or ancient kitchen gear, I am half-way out the door and on a hunt.

I am hopeful to get this under control and disconnect the thrill of the hunt from making the purchase. The much bigger threat is curation.

Curation in and of itself is nothing bad: It is the act of arranging, commenting, and contextualizing a collection to make it tell a story. However, it sucks if the story told is something along the lines of “Hey, look at all the things I have gathered because they define who I am.” It sucks even more if the things stay untouched. That way I not only betray the items but most importantly myself. I am 100% guilty of having told that story.

There was a time when I purchased things to add them to an altar (think: book shelf) that I hoped would make me the person I wished to be. I would buy George Orwell’s volume of essays, buy expensive drawing tools, and elaborate kitchen gear in the hope of being magically turned into a more sophisticated, more creative, and healthier version of myself. The intent to consume, to use, and to learn one day was always there. But the realization that this day might never come and the search for a more pragmatic approach to learning and growing was a windy road.

Today, purpose and consumption are the most important considerations when an item is about to enter our household. I wholeheartedly believe that books are meant to be read, games are meant to be played, tools are meant to be used, and music is meant to be listened to. On top of that, I try to acquire something only if it helps me with a task at hand or acts as a timeless source of inspiration.

Inspiration for my own creative journey.

2 Consumption vs. Creation

I have talked a lot about the external implications of things: the hunt for them, the curation of them, the properties that make them either identity-establishing or identity-ridiculing. What I haven’t talked about yet are the internal wonders that items have to offer once they are consumed.

This whole chain of thoughts was kicked into motion by Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, a twelve-week program to kickstart or rekindle one’s creativity. This book has put me on a path of questioning my ways of consuming and creating. And here I am, contemplating my collecting behavior and selling my last Blu-rays.

One quote of the book keeps resounding in my head:

Pure consumption can be dangerous. Let me rephrase that: Mindless consumption without attention to detail is dangerous as it does not help to refill your own internal reservoir of creativity, but drains you of all creational spirit; a thought that I have entertained when I bought art for the first time.

The input of art in all forms and colors is important to be an artist. But there is a risk of overdoing it and ending up blocked rather than inspired. I have a strong intuition that this is true.

Replacing Collections With Tributes

Back to my last Blu-rays, all beautiful mediabook editions of movies I deeply cherish. I hold on to these because for the longest time I thought that this is a fitting way to pay my tribute to the creators. The mere existence on my shelf as a profound bow. Now I think this is nonsense. They are artifacts made of cardboard and plastic that I can’t even play back anymore. The accompanying booklets can be found online, as can special features and audio commentaries. Heck, it’s more than probable that the whole Blu-ray is available in my local library or video store. What’s worse, although they collect dust on my shelf, there is no manifestation of my absorbance of the movies.

I want to change that! And I hope that The Artist’s Way will support me in finding ways to pay tribute to the things that made me by flexing my own creative muscle. To me that sounds like a good first step in recalibrating the interplay of consumption and creation.