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I don’t care much for shopping. Well, I don’t care much for aimlessly wondering around big box stores looking for overpriced stuff I’ll rarely use. Technically, I go shopping (minus going to market) two or three times a week and I’ve done that for twenty years. Surprise, I go to thrift stores! Mostly I go looking for things to make into other things. I buy old books, magazines, random office supplies, and lately, a lot of figures and pieces of wood to spray-paint. For four or five dollars I can walk out with a lot of fun parts. I look in the sack of these parts piled in my upstairs room, and think to myself “what will you become?” Postcard collage is usually the answer.
It’s the thrill of the hunt. It’s entertainment. It’s a stress reliever. As soon as I walk into a place and get that overwhelming moldy clothes and dust smell in my nostrils I’m at peace. Walking past a guy who just came off the street to get warm and is sucking on his fingers in the middle of the aisle, this is culture…man. Going to thrift stores on the regular is an activity where I get to interact with personalities and mostly, the run-off a consumer society that buys too much shit. The only time I hate going is at Halloween when all of the Wake Forest kids in Brooks Brothers clothes go looking for “freaky” outfits. They snicker as they walk the aisles. In contrast, The School of Arts kids walk into thrift stores with thrift store outfits already on.
I move swiftly. I have my
routines, but I’m there every week. I hit the major stops in Winston-Salem as
well as those in Lexington, Thomasville, and Kernersville all within a month
period. When I get the chance I have trips that go from Salisbury all the way
to Central Avenue in Charlotte. I have a path through Burlington that leads to
Durham. To find good shit, I have two tips. 1. Go to terrible towns where the
cool kids and “internet millionaires” don’t go. That means, stay away from
thrift stores in “real” college towns. P.T.A. in Chapel Hill can get expensive.
Oh yeah, internet millionaires are those hoarder-trolls that stand around all
day looking for things they can resale for two pennies profit. 2. Go often.
Board games have been the
main source of my thrift store focus lately. Only recently did I even take a
look at that section. That shelf is mostly made of puzzles with missing pieces
in them. I don’t do puzzles, I’m not old enough for that. One day I started to
slowly look through the piles and I picked out a couple board games, mostly
older ones. I pulled down Life and a few games I’d never heard of from the 1970’s.
Inside I found parts and pieces of paper that were old and unique, stuff you
wouldn’t find in other stores. Many of the board games had never been played,
so you’re opening a box full of paper and notepads and games pieces that are
basically new. Basically new but with the production value and design (less
digital precision) of at least forty years ago.
Here’s the best part, the going price at all Goodwill’s in Northwest North Carolina is 50 cents. 50 cents! Dollar Tree doesn’t have as good of deals. Sure, they sometimes have the specially priced board games that can go up to five dollars, but the pricing isn’t consistent. Remember rule number two?
Initially I was just buying bingo card sets for 50 cents. You’d get as many as 25 old bingo cards in one box. I’d spray-paint those on the weekends and put my collages on top. They were sturdy enough to send all by themselves. It’s solid cardboard. The newer ones are a little flimsier so they can be sent in an envelope with other pieces of paper and stay under the one-ounce limit. Bingo cards have also been reproduced in every color and shape you could imagine. There’s no limit to the amount of different kinds…it’s a cheap cardboard canvas of recycled materials. I imagine that 90% of my collages have been tapped to a bingo card that I bought at a thrift store.
Recently, it’s all been about Scrabble board games for me. Not so much those wooden taupe colored tiles that have been the mainstay of the game for years. I prefer the other kinds, the Scrabble Junior pieces that are a little bigger and come in more pleasing colors. Much like bingo cards, there seems to be no limit to the different types of Scrabble tiles. Some of them are in light blue with black letters, some are taupe with yellow on top, and I even have bag with black letters. You get a ton of them and they cost next to nothing.
I like to put similar tiles in bags and then spread them on a table and spell out stuff. I then glue those letters to cheap wooden cutouts I buy from Dollar Tree, or you guessed it, repurposed thrift store items. The things I end up spelling are completely silly, childish, or just stupid. It’s liberating to be so simple and so stupid. No art whatsoever. Mostly I like to focus on making signs. Signs are supposed to give you basic information and directions. Of course, just because of the things I’m interested in, I like signs that confuse or offend but present themselves as an authority. I like signs that do the exact opposite of what they’re designed to. I’ve been obsessed with these signs for years. I spend a lot of time taking pictures of signs in foreign countries and then making new signs out of those pictures. It’s visual poetry, or something like that. When I’m done with them I give them away like everything else I make.
Katie + Molly + Kat 
Steve Holt 
Bill Hicks
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