“My name is Marilyn, as in Marilyn Monroe.
I have this wonderful round bag with spikes. Not many people would wear it, but I love everything odd.
It will perk up any black outfit!”
Marilynn is 82 years old and a staple in the Boston society circles. The bag was given to her from a student she helped at Mass College of Art who eventually went onto the the tv series Project Runway.
“My name is Dexter and I am from South Africa.
I hate stereotypes and I hate fitting the norm, so I’m always looking for ways to kind of break that and one of those ways is through my sneakers.
These are my favorite because they kind of speak to me and they’re really out there and that’s the type of person I think I am.
Buying sneakers is kind of my indulgence.
I paid $90 for them, cash.
It was a good purchase, I think.”
Dexter currently is in his second year at Amherst College in western Massachusetts studying dance, theater and creative writing. Purple is the school’s principle color.
“The name is Maximilian.
My object is a Louisville slugger, actually half of a Louisville slugger.
I was shooting reference images for a new painting and needed to have a bunch of boys destroy a chair with some bats. We went to IKEA to pick up the cheapest piece of shit that we could just decimate because after years of college we realized that all IKEA furniture is excellent at exploding- If you EVEN breathe on it!
I chose a plain white chair at the lowest price possible- I think I paid 14 dollars for three of them, and I picked the one invincible mother fucking thing at IKEA. This chair broke a Louisville in half when we were trying to destroy it.”
Max is an artist and painter by profession. Asked what will become of the bat: “Out of thanks to a good friend of mine for many years of showing up and doing whatever crazy shit I can come up with, we’re gonna put this half of a bat into a shadow box and make him some art.”
“Hi – my name is Scott.
The item I brought today is a stuffed Ernie doll from my childhood. It was one of the first items that I possessed, given to me by my parents of course, as an infant.
I have had it with me since I left home, through college and I still have it next to my bed today.
Have I ever washed Ernie? Oh Yeah! -He goes in a pillow case. He’s about to fall apart so he doesn’t get washed anymore.”
Ernie is getting on in life, he will be 32 years old this year. Scott would consider surgery on Ernie.
“My name is Jon.
My object of importance is a black tee shirt that says ‘DA’ WEST’ on it.
I got this tee about 12 or 15 years ago, bought it for literally like a dollar or so. The reason I enjoy it so much is because everytime I wear it someone asks me what the hell it means and I, to this day, have no idea what it means.
I like the fact that it irritates everyone with this answer.”
“My name is Erin.
I know it seems obvious and lame but I brought my laptop. I met my husband on-line at Match.com and started a career that I never thought was possible for myself.
At the time, I think it was 9 years ago, I was socially awkward and a coworker suggested I try on line dating. I was like: Are you insane? So she put up a profile for me. My mother said they’d find me chopped up in the trunk of a Camaro.
I got 600 emails the first couple of days but they were all gross and then I noticed where you could specify your search parameters and Andrews profile came up. I said to my girlfriend- why doesn’t a guy like that write me?
I went to bed- didn’t contact him. The next morning he had e-mailed me. It was really creepy.
I didn’t actually have narrow search parameters. He had to be really tall, graduated college, never married. What’s funny is that on our first date, the one and only date I had from match.com, the first thing Andrew said when we sat down was: Okay- I have to tell you something. I was like great-What? He says: I’m Divorced… I’m Thinking great, what else?…and I didn’t graduate college. And he says if you want to leave, totally fine but I just wanted to tell you and get that out the way. He explained that he was married for only ninety days, big mistake and had dropped out of college to run a business but was now back in college and finishing his degree.”
Fast forward to 2010-Erin and Andrew have been married now for five years. Andrew earned not only his under graduate degree but also a masters. Erin’s interior design business continues to thrive and her blog http://www.elementsofstyleblog.com has taken off with almost 200,000 hits per month.
“Okay! My name. Sandy.
Here’s what I brought today. It’s a vintage Easy Rider motorcycle helmet. I love motorcycles, I race motorcycles, I grew up on motorcycles. I’ve been a gear head all my life.
I always loved Easy Rider. One of my greatest memories of coming of age was seeing this movie. It was amazing.
I found this magazine ad for a place called Justified Defiance. They found all the old styles- a whole warehouse full of them. They kept just the shells, restored them and the brought them back to life.
I had to have it.
When I’m not using it, it sits on the shelf in my house.
You know, it’s a great piece. It’s Americana man!”
Coincidentally, right after this was photographed there was news of Dennis Hopper’s passing. Hopper had directed and starred in this cinematic symbol of the 1960s.
“My name is Ayden
I am 6 years old.
Today I brought some of my Bakugans.
I don’t know why I like them, I just do.
Thank you.”
“My name is Ron and today I brought Kleenexes of my late wife Lisa.
The joke that we had, (which really wasn’t a joke) was the fact that she was always blowing her nose and leaving the Kleenexes all over the place. I’d find them in the bed, on the bed, in the sofa, and on the sofa. She’d just blow her nose and leave the Kleenex and I would always complain, ‘Don’t you know what a wastebasket looks like?’
One time she said, ‘Well one of these days I’m not going to be around and you’re going to find one of these Kleenex and you are going to feel sorry for giving me such a hard time about them.’
Ironically, that was the case, because Lisa died suddenly of septic shock.
After she died, I was going through some of her bathrobes and found these Kleenexes. I just laughed because I remembered the conversation we had and I never thought that she would die.
When something like this happens you just want to keep things. Anything.
It’s weird because since she was cremated I couldn’t get a lock of her hair. I have some of her hairbrushes with a little of her hair. I actually cleaned the bathtub that was clogged, so I have a ‘clog’ of her hair.
But the Kleenexes are the only things that really I know she touched on this planet so I keep them. It’s strange, but what can you do?”
“The young girl the picture is our daughter Kiki. She was only three when she lost her mom.”