A few years back I was reaching into my wallet to fish out some money perhaps, and someone who knew me very little asked about a picture inside. I don't think anyone would be ready for the response, "I don't know" to the question "Who is that girl?". But it was true. I used to carry around a picture of a girl in my wallet that I didn't know and odds were, would never see in my life. This is me.
I wouldn't want things to be different. I am proud of the fact that people could not completely understand me after talking only a few times. I want to believe that everyone has depth but some choose not to explore it.
Anyways, this brings me to the "torch of tolerance" pictured above. It started with a trip to Goodwill in Lakewood, Washington. I was searching through the toy section with nothing specific in mind and landed upon a black Ken doll. He was completely nude except for an interesting sticker on his thigh. I began to ask myself what exactly a child would want with a nude doll. So I purchased it.
When I got my treasures back to my dorm, I sat and tried to figure out what I had. I removed the sticker from the thigh and relocated to his chest. Then it hit me; I had the prototype of my own superhero.I gave him his own effeminate uniform complete with baton-twirler-type boots and a shirt that stopped just above his stomach. The make-up completed the first transgendered black superhero I named The Darkness.
Feeling a sense of satisfaction, I left my dorm to grab some dinner. As I passed another dorm room, I saw something small and black lying on the ground. It was the truncated end of a power cord to some type of electronic. Fitting into his hand quite naturally, now The Darkness had a weapon. His "Torch of Tolerance" assisted him in his quest to rid the world of racist, homophobic villains.
Of course this exercise in creativity was silly and without much reason but, nevertheless, exciting. I can't say exactly what began my fascination with taking on tasks such as this or my love of thrift stores, but I can say that there is an underlying intrigue I have with objects that belonged to someone else before me. I always imagine what kind of story these objects would tell if they had the means. I also wonder what the original owners would think of the rebirth of their "junk". By the way, that picture of the girl I kept in my wallet was obtained on the same trip. It was in the frame section. I just had to wonder why someone would give away a picture of someone that could only be close to a small number of people and why Goodwill displayed it. I also liked the idea that I had possession of a picture of a girl that I would never meet. I also wonder what she would think if she knew.
One of my favorite websites is http://taiga.com/~paul/ which is "The PSB Gallery of Thrift Store Art". This person apparently has enough space and a similar fascination that he has collected vast amounts of paintings from thrift stores everywhere. Some of the paintings are quite good but most are amateur, derivative, or unintentionally down-right creepy. Still, you have to wonder what the stories are behind them and sometimes they can take on a mythology all their own.
"One man's trash is another man's treasure". This rings true for me. It really makes me understand the subjectivity of value and thankful that some put very little to things I want to put a lot into.
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