o death

The National Museum of Mexican Art is my new favorite museum. I'm especially excited about the ofrendas a los muertos: stage-like altars to the dead.

I bought a sugar skull with my name on it. At home, I added it to my mantelpiece collection of decorative-objects-with-vaguely-emotional-significance. Also in this collection:

-praying hands
-large eyed kitten
-virgin mary
-antique portuguese teacup & saucer
-gnarled root

In my first post, I wrote about collecting to fulfill an emotion need. People collect for an variety of reasons, but I think my main motivation is a desire to see my identity and experience reflected in the objects around me. My stuff is my self in a way. I've never been the kind of person to buy things that are generic and practical. I need style and whimsy to feel like an individual.

Additionally, I suspect that all collecting involves a denial of death. By linking my identity to objects, I become immortal. I might die, but my stuff never will. When my grandmother was dying, she bought sewing patterns. Judging from the boxes we found in her room, she was planning to make hundreds of dresses someday.

Of course, everything is a spectrum: