“Internationally Domestic”, Odds and Ends Series, No. 34

This mirrors No. 35, “Domestically International”. And while the story is still the same, these pieces hold a little bit of a heavier anchor for my memories. In my last post about the stamps, I really honed in on the eccentricities of the job rather than anything else, but what I failed to mention was about the stamp collecting process itself.

I can understand the obsession with collectibility. I am a collector of odd things, and as I’m sitting here in my room full of moving boxes in my Los Feliz apartment in Los Angeles, I am acutely aware of my obsession to collect things.. primarily for my artwork. I have boxes and boxes of transit cards, hotel key cards, metal keys, stamps, bottles… .. all ready for this… invisible project that hasn’t ever.. really reared its head in my direction.

For the stamps, it wasn’t about just about items for collages. I loved these stamps because they were from places that I had never been to. Being that my imagination is, at best, overwhelming, … cutting these stamps made me feel like I wasn’t so stuck in my own life. When I cut a stamp from Poland, I’d look at the writing on the envelope, and imagine what the scenario was when the person wrote on the envelope.. Questions would go flooding into my mind… What was the kitchen like? Was it foggy outside? What did the house or apartment look like? Their street? The street signs? All these visual questions would erupt from my head ..

I’ve had that mentality as a kid, especially since growing up in a place where I felt I didn’t belong, and itched to leave. I’d escape to many places, and research endlessly on islands and countries that were far from my own home. I suppose I still have it, as when I created this Mickey, my head went straight back to that pathway of all the different countries that I wanted to visit.