Ann Amica: Bread Tags, Golf Tees & Colorful Plastics

Family Collecting & Visual Rhymes

“With bread tags, I've gotten really into the ones that are deformed or melted. I really like that. I like the ones that have been run over in the street a lot.” 

ANN: Well, I have a photocopy collection, which I have been putting photocopies in and taking photocopies out of since I was maybe 14 or 15. I have a collection of melted birthday candles. I collect teabag tags, bread tags, golf tees, buttons, rusty nails, cake decorations, different printed matter like small old printed packaging, the four CYK circles from cereal boxes, spools, street sweeper blades. I like radiating objects. I like phallic objects. 

My collecting reminds me of certain childhood things. Like our family Christmas tree was over the top. It was not tasteful. There was no theme. It was full. Many boxes of shit put on one tree: beautiful handmade stuff with cheesy plastic shit, stuff the kids had made, stuff from grandma's childhood. I like that kind of aesthetic, lots of colors and things that you grow familiar with. Things that are very familiar or that you imagine relationships between.

There are certain things that go together. There’s some amount of visual rhyming: things that are a similar shape go together; things that are a similar color go together. They create some kind of story with each other.

With bread tags, I've gotten really into the ones that are deformed or melted. I really like that. I like the ones that have been run over in the street a lot. The golf tees...my least favorite are the natural wood ones. Both of them I like having text on or numbers. With the exception of the melted bread tags they are much more interesting in groupings than they are as individuals. So I like to set them up in rows, stacks. 

ZOE: What are street sweeper blades?

A: So, the street sweeper machine that has those big metal brushes that go around, they fall off. They are flat skinny steel and vary in length from a few inches to a foot long. I learned to pick them up from my grandmother. She thought they were useful. They’re spring-steel. They’re a good little tool for poking in at something or applying glue onto a small surface, or mixing something. I would weave them into antennas and leave them places.

There’s usually places that you find them [street sweeper blades] more, and it’s funny cause I always used to pick them up as a pedestrian and when I started riding a bike more I kinda stopped picking them up and now I feel like with any of the things that I like to pick up I've internalized a little bit of like telling myself not to pick them up. Sometimes I pass them by now, but I used to weave them into a little woven antennae’s and leave them places...most houses that I've lived in. Obviously I've shown great restraint here.

I like setting the golf tees up with the pokey side up in rows, like on tops of windows. 

Oh, double-headed matches are another collection, like conjoined matches. 

Z: You have a print of conjoined matches and of the bread tags. Have you made prints of other things you collect?

Art Inspiration

“I really love finding religious objects on the floor of the Bargain Barn—and toys because they both have this hopefulness to them and were potentially something really special to somebody and then they’re on the floor of the Bargain Barn.”

A: Yeah, nails, a lot of things are potentially art inspiration. Things look good in groupings; anything is more interesting when there's a bunch of it, repetition. I'm a printmaker. There are things that I've had for years that I haven't made art about. And then there are other objects that come up over and over again. I don't know why. And it’s like, Why did that thing get all this attention? This other thing is just as weird or interesting.

Z: How much time do you think you devote to your collections or rearranging them or finding places for them? 

A: Recently, the past few months it's not that big of a deal, but sometimes that's like, especially when I have my own room I can spend a lot of time playing with stuff—actually this project I've been spending time on this month is actually really great cause I've given myself permission to use some of my favorite photocopies in the collages which is kind of scary and kind of freeing at the same time. But it makes me realize that I need to make more photocopies-which was not my intention. I'm like I need to make more, but there's still a big stack...the new photocopy machines aren’t as good, unfortunately. 

Z: So what makes a good bread tag or a good golf tee or a good streetsweeper blade?

A: Well, both the bread tags and the golf tees come in different colors. So, in both instances I prefer the colored ones over the white ones. With bread tags, I've gotten really into the ones that are deformed or melted. I really like that. I like the ones that have been run over in the street a lot. The golf tees...my least favorite are the natural wood ones. Both of them I like having text on or numbers. With the exception of the melted bread tags they are much more interesting in groupings than the are as individuals. So I like to set them up in rows, stacks. 

Z: Where do you keep everything?

A: You know, everything is a little messed up right now because before Greta was born my office space moved upstairs. So, all my stuff is in a box. Part of what I enjoy about collecting is setting up little dioramas of them. It’s not very practical, so I've tried to figure out which spaces I'm allowed to colonize and which ones are off limits.

Z: Do you feel like the things you collect help you to create worlds?

A: It’s like vignettes. It’s like another universe. They are metaphors for things or they are like characters, or landscapes.

Rusty Crusty Things

Z: If you were given limitless resources to display your collections how would you display them?

A: Oh, windowsills are really good; a horizontal surface that is a few inches deep is great; the top of the dresser is a good deep surface where I can do a more elaborate setup.

Z: But for now, when they are not out, they are in a box?

A: Which I feel bad about because they are my most prized possessions and they are jumbled together. I have certain anxieties about that sort of stuff...when I was moving from La Bahia to Chavez we were moving with a red wagon. It was dark and I was pulling a load of stuff and a bunch of my special arrangements were squished into some mason jars and the cart tipped over. One of the jars broke and I was picking through this combination of trash on the sidewalk and broken glass and my most precious little bits of lots of trash. It was an anxiety dream come true— sifting through trash in the dark with broken glass...but it’s precious to me. (laughing) I was like, WHAT AM I DOING?

Z: You have so many jars of things. 

A: I like the combined jars a lot. I like bright things with gross things; bright plastic things with rusty, crusty things. I really love cake decorations. I have done some filling up of Easter eggs with rusty nails and cake decorations and leaving them places. They get really gross in the rain and I love—oh I love string tangles, knots of stuff. Chaos and organizing chaos. The most interesting ones are colorful and kind of gross. I keep coming back to that combination of things. The cake decorations are actually from the Bargain Barn. The golf tees are, too.  

Z: Do you find a lot of stuff at the Bargain Barn?

A: I used to go several times a week or daily. Some of my favorite things are from the floor 'cause it’s like the lowest of the low. It’s foul. I really love finding religious objects on the floor of the Bargain Barn—and toys because they both have this hopefulness to them and were potentially something really special to somebody and then they’re on the floor of the Bargain Barn…I especially like finding things when it rains cause the water just kind of flows through there, you know? There'll just be like drifts of disgustingness. 

Z: Are there other places you go beside the Bargain Barn?

A: I really love picking things up off the ground, like when I'm on a walk or I find a lot of things at my parents' house because they are hoarders.

“My sister was going to throw the tooth away. She was like, that is disgusting and I was like, No you don't, I need that.”

Z: Is your parents' house organized? Can you talk about their hoarding?

A: There are 'stuff' problems on both sides of the family.

My grandmother was a collector and kind of a maximalist, but she was very organized and tidy in her collections. But, anything that broke, she saved because she was going to fix it and sometimes she did. But there were also boxes of things to be fixed. All the surfaces were covered. There were dioramas of wood and rocks and creatures everywhere. Even in her kitchen 'cause she didn’t cook. She opened cat food, and I think that's about it. Part of the memory of her house is the smell of an empty cat food can in the sink. She was a big aesthetic inspiration for me. I have a collection of her teeth, which is pretty intense. 

Both my parents are scroungers. I feel very glad that I was indoctrinated young to be a scrounger. So, dumpster diving, picking things up off the road, anything you can get for free is good. I feel like my dad is potentially more of a hoarder. He's an engineer. There is a surplus of electronic equipment that he sees value in from a bygone era. I might not even know what some piece of electronics is but he has 30 of them. You cannot walk in his workshop. It’s pathological. And at his brother's house there's like little tunnels, little mazes through stuff. My mother told me that my grandfather had a workshop in the basement, and he drank tea and every time he was done with a teabag, he put it on top of the exposed pipes. The basement pipes were just lined with used teabags. I am like, it’s a brain thing. It’s got to be a brain thing.

My mom has a big restaurant china collection, every cabinet is full, but there's like furniture and magazines stacked on the furniture in front of the full cabinets, so you can't even get to it. Neither of them take care of stuff which is the part that creeps me out the most. That it’s just like, it happens to be totally chance you know, like what is the framed art on the wall and what is the framed art that's sitting around in a pile? What is the precious thing that is on the shelf in the living room and what's the thing that's like getting stepped on and broken...it’s like my grandmother's teeth were in a box of beautiful things from other countries and junk mail—just all together. That's the part that I find really disturbing.

That’s not taking care of the things...or that’s not interacting with them, let alone taking care of them.

Z: Do you think that is the distinction between hoarding and collecting?

A: I hope so. I have friends who tease me for saving things and I feel sensitive about it. Then there is part of me that is like, No, I've got this under control. One of my sisters doesn’t have it under control. She got the problem. She, like, buys shoes online and then doesn’t remember that she bought the shoes. She finds them unopened in the box because it got buried, and then she's like, Oh I forgot I bought these shoes. And I'm like, I have like three pairs of shoes I wear. How can you forget you bought a pair? Buying a pair of shoes is monumental. It’s just kind of different. I guess people have stuff problems in different ways. I think taking care of stuff and being able to enjoy it—that is the line I try to maintain...and I do stray from it and I get piles of stuff that I can't deal with...and then I eventually deal with it. I think living in a small space with another person who is also a collector but will periodically purge his collections, that helps. 

“Those little grey balls over there are dryer lint from my sister that she sent me because she thought I'd be interested in them.”

Z: What does Josh collect?

A: Materials. But, I mean, there are like file drawers that are labeled "hooks and hinges" and they have hooks and hinges in them. He tries to be practical about it, but we both appreciate reusing materials so we both pick up materials that are useful for reuse. 

Z: It sounds like you get things from people and you find things. Do you like the social elements of collecting?

A: Sometimes. Sometimes people get it really right. Those little grey balls over there are dryer lint from my sister that she sent me because she thought I'd be interested in them. She took apart her dryer and somehow lint had gotten around the outside of the drum so it had been felted into these cool little eggs. And I do love them. She sent them without an explanation and I was just like, these are amazing.

Z: If someone found a bag of 300 golf tees and offered it to you, would you be excited about that or would that stress you out?

A: It might stress me out a little bit, but I could always put them in mason jars. I've often thought maybe I should do some more assemblage art with my collections. But, I'm a little too attached for that. I like being able to arrange them, even if I stick with the same combination for a long time. Then they are still also their selves.

Z: So, you mentioned you have some shame around your collections…

A: I am scared of going down a dark path. I think collecting is a warning sign in myself. Then also, I get a lot of joy out of my collections. I'm not a minimalist. I'm not going to be a minimalist. I don’t want to make myself miserable by thinking that I ought to go there...but I have to hold myself back.

Z: From your collection potential?

A: Yeah. Before Josh and I were sharing this house, almost all the surfaces in my room were either like mess collecting or carefully arranged collecting. So, if you set down a cup, you were messing up a diorama. It becomes not functional.

Z: Do you have plans for your grandmother’s teeth?

A: No. The first one I found while going through some of her stuff. My sister was going to throw the tooth away. She was like, that is disgusting and I was like, No you don't; I need that. I don't know what I'm going to do with them. I'm glad I have them. {laughing} It's kind of disturbing, but also I'm interested in bones and bodies. 

Z: I don’t find it disturbing for you.

A: I don’t find it disturbing for me, either. I feel like it might be disturbing for someone else. It was disturbing for my sister. It might be really disturbing for my mom, but I'm really glad I have them. 

Ann Amica lives in the floodplain of the San Lorenzo River and likes to make art about science and the things she finds on the ground.