Sapphire: Classified Ads, Hair, Fingernails & Cat Photos

*Sapphire preferred not to have her collections photographed.

I also collect things to use in an altar. These are all things that are associated with particular people or places or events. It could be anything. Like a pair of earrings that someone gave me and that person acted a certain way and so I keep those in case I want to remind myself of whatever it is that I got out of knowing that person.

Zoe: OK Sapphire, tell me what your collections are. 

Sapphire: Ok. There's a few. They are not all active. I have collections of things from when I used to smoke and I would roll my own cigarettes. There would be a little piece of cardboard—two pieces. One piece of corrugated cardboard and one piece of white card stock inside the package of rolling papers at the end, and I would save those. I still have those. 

Z: Why? 

S: For potential use in making a book, but I've had them for years. It would be a very small book. 

I also collect small containers. I collect small jars, and in the jars I put hair of my own that comes off when I'm trimming it. {Big Smile} I just had the idea of starting to date the jars. If I have a steady supply then I could have them—well then I would have that information, and it could potentially be useful.

Once upon a time, I used to collect my fingernails and sometimes toenails. I always bite them—not because of a nervous habit, but because I feel like what I end up with feels better for my fingers. I would store them in a music box that had a drawer and a couple of shelves in it, and I would open the drawer, and it would be filled with these little slivers of fingernail, and also there were one or two big intact pieces of blister skin—like it had been a callous before the blister formed underneath it so it was preservable—and there were a few other items inside that had significance to me from where they came from—I'm not going to talk about what they were, though.

Someone told me that it wasn’t good to keep the nails. That it stores bad energy or something like that. But I don’t really go along with the use of the word energy to talk about a million different things. And, I just don’t agree with that, and I don’t think that it stores significance in itself. But I think that it is possible for a person who feels that way about it, it will have that effect and I'm not—this is tangential. But, I'm not trashing that, and I participate in similar stuff in other ways.

Z: Do you think when the hair and nails are removed they become something else? 

S: Yeah, cause they're from a specific time and they are not me anymore, but they are from my body. One of the things that can be done with the jars of little hair is to send them to somebody. 

I also collect things to use in an altar. These are all things that are associated with particular people or places or events. It could be anything. Like a pair of earrings that someone gave me and that person acted a certain way and so I keep those in case I want to remind myself of whatever it is that I got out of knowing that person. 

For instance, one of the things is a collection itself. It’s a jar full of these small notes that I found when I lived in Pasadena, and I would walk to work...well anywhere just about. I would find these little pieces of paper all folded in the same way. They were probably an inch and a half to two inches long, folded maybe a centimeter or centimeter and a half wide; they’re folded so many times that they are almost rolled and then pinched in the middle. Each one was the same thing. It was clear that somebody had made an entire sheet of these small notes. They were personals ads, and they were asking—it was somebody named Michael who had no friends or family and was looking for a woman between a certain set of ages for Love, marriage and possibly more. Sometimes he was specific about race, and it was pretty clear that he didn’t like black people cause he would say, Oriental, Hispanic or White only. Oriental was his word. We used to find these for a few years, and I found them not all in Pasadena. I think I found one in Duarte even, which is a few miles east of Pasadena. 

Z: Just on the ground?

S: Yeah. This was in the mid to late 90s. The Internet wasn't as accessible to a lot of people, and there was a Pic'n'Save where there was a cork board, and people would post personals ads on that. It wasn’t like completely bizarre what was happening, but it was intriguing to see this strategy for trying to find somebody that was very unlikely to succeed cause it was little tiny pieces of paper that almost nobody would notice. I guess that Michael must have been looking for somebody who would notice something like that. I feel bad about having picked them up though, cause that means I took away even that tiny little chance. I was just fascinated by them. Then I remember that he was racist. That doesn’t let me off the hook, and it takes away the sweetness, but I guess I’m saying that some of the things I keep are there to make me think about concrete stuff, that doesn’t go away, in complex ways. Not necessarily pleasant.

...It was also just more common at that time just to find weird shit on the ground. Pictures that have been ripped up; eyes crossed out from breakups; paper ripped up into a bunch of pieces and thrown out of a car next to the —there were always a lot next to the freeway on-ramp. 

Z: Do you still have those?

S: No, I stopped being into them—well into picking up other people's remnants of stuff and romanticizing it. Although, I mean, it can still be emotionally affecting, like sometimes you find a breakup letter in the street and it’s intense and like you don't know anything that they're referring to. And they always seem DUMB, too!

{Laughing}

And you know you would sound exactly the same way. 

When I was a teenager, I used to collect the longest hair. Sometimes they were taken consensually, and sometimes they weren’t. I feel bad about that, but I was a teenager.

Z: Do you have any other collections?

S: Probably. Oh, um, well. It’s a slow collection, but pictures of cats that I consider worthy of putting up in my room. Above where I sleep and have dreams, I have a kitten painted on a plate. And next to where I primp in the morning, I have a framed picture of a more teenaged cat, or proportionally speaking; and next to it is a picture of some connections; and then over my desk is the adult cat.

Z: What are connections? 

S: Um, you sleep like a baby.  Be aware of your appearance and make connections like a teenager.

When I was a teenager, I used to collect the longest hair. Sometimes they were taken consensually, and sometimes they weren’t. I feel bad about that, but I was a teenager.

Z: Like people’s longest hairs?

S: I had to keep them separate so I’d get a little piece of cardboard and put a notch in it and then wrap the hair around the cardboard. Then I’d get a piece of masking tape and write their names on the masking tape. They are all in a jar with a rainbow stopper.

Z: How did you know which hair was the longest hair?

S: I just tried to get the longest one!

I might not have been explicit, but one of the things I collect are things that remind me of people that are having an effect on me. It's a way of focusing a certain quality. It wouldn’t be fair to say of any of the things that I use defines this person—also the meaning of something can change as my feelings about someone change. 

And, the purpose of this—now we are talking about what I do with an altar—which I haven't done in a very long time—it's all stuff that refers to a person and or something important... they all have to do with something important I need to keep in mind to be the best version of myself. 

Z: Are the altars about growing as a person? 

S: Yeah and arranging it is about deciding what to be focusing on and there's creating an order somehow just in the way that they're arranged—it’s very hard for me to articulate this. 

Z: Placement of the objects affects the altar? 

S: Yeah the placement will reflect priorities. My priorities. 

Z: So there are ways to make an altar more effective for what you want it to be? 

S: Yeah. You just keep doing it until it starts to not bother you anymore. It may not actually be different every day, but potentially, every day, situations change. The purpose is for having my head be clear and sort of to remind myself of the things that I've decided are most important. So, it’s inherently going to be different. I'm trying to make a purpose. 

Z: As you are setting it up, it reminds you of how to focus yourself? 

S: Time spent there is spent thinking of nothing else but how to approach a situation that you are in or that I'm in with an eye toward being the best version of myself. 

Z: So when you interact with it after you've designed it do you sit there and reflect on the things? 

S: Hmm. Hmm. 

Z: How much time do you think you do that? 

S: It depends. It's been a very long time since I've done it actually. But, I was doing it everyday for a while. But I don't want to get into the background of that. 

I started using an altar in a crisis. I had already been keeping things before that crisis. 

I had them on display and intended on using them like an altar, but I didn’t have the space set up.

I'm comfortable talking about the altar thing cause I think I'm probably not the only person who does things that way, and I also don't think that sharing that skeleton, that structure, that way of doing things itself…that’s not so private, and maybe someone can use that. 

Z: Do you think that specifically within queer communities there's a lot of weight on objects in general? Or collection practices? Do you think people have a different sort of respect for objects?

S: I think it’s probably more like—no, cause I don’t think that there is a homogenous queer culture. BUT when I think of the "queer" community that I think you might be talking about, I think it's more the aesthetics is a lot different. Like some people collect DVDs—I'm not saying that DVDs are less queer, but I feel like—I wonder if when you are asking that—if you are thinking about people that are kind of woo and enjoy stained wood...

Z: With your collections that are of the body, do you keep adding to them? 

S: Not the nails. At some point—it had to do with needing to change—I stopped. I almost got rid of them after I had a hard time and then started placing a lot of value on giving the things that old objects remind me of a defined role in my life by having an altar. 

Z: Um you put a lot of value on the music box. 

S: Oh yeah, I stopped using it and almost got rid of it and then decided to keep it. 

The hair is more recent. It's after moving to Oakland. I think it started from wanting to send some to a friend who had sent me an amazing care package. Like truly stupendous, incredible, amazing. 

Z: I interviewed someone who collects their own eyelashes. 

S: Oh! Something that I always wanted to be good at collecting, but never was good at keeping them in a good place. I used to have a few cat whiskers, when they come out. 

Z: I've actually interviewed two people that collect cat whiskers. 

S: OHHHHHHHHH. How many did they have?

Z: I can show you a picture of one of them afterwards if you want to see—

S: YES! 

Z: Your collecting is very private. 

S: Yeah, well, it’s not like 'I'm going to be a “collector” it’s like, this counts as collecting.

I'm pretty conscious about the hair thing cause I have a little thing to put it in with all my makeup and stuff. It's just right there. And, I have my scissors. 

Z: Can you talk more about why you don't want to talk more about certain things?

S: Cause it’s not something I want disseminated. There are things that I am talking about that have nothing to do with collecting and do have to do with things that are intense for me, and that would be like telling you my life story, and also I don’t want too much of altar time to be something that other people can talk about. Any snapshots of it will be in my own handwriting cause it’s not like an art project for other people to understand. 

Z: Is it ok if I put that in there? 

S: What did I say? 

Z: Any snapshots will be in your own handwriting, it’s not for other people. 

S: Yeah. I mean I don’t mean it emphatic or anything. 

Z: I like how private you are. 

S: Do you think I'm private in general? 

Z: I think you're private about personal things. 

S: Cause what’s not personal? 

Z: I think you have very clear boundaries, and I don’t think everybody does. 

S: Yeah. Well altar time takes place in a certain kind of space that is separate from the rest of the world. 

I'm comfortable talking about the altar thing cause I think I'm probably not the only person who does things that way, and I also don't think that sharing that skeleton, that structure, that way of doing things itself…that’s not so private, and maybe someone can use that. 

That clock has the wrong Roman Numeral IIII just like my dad's did. 

Now that I noticed a pattern in the cat pictures that I already have, I may have to get more cat pictures that don't have frames, to separate them thematically, if I continue getting cat pictures, but I do think it's kind of cool to have a collection and say, three is enough. This is my collection of three. 

Z: Do you have a cat? 

S: No but I live with one. 

Z: Do you ever find its whiskers? 

S: No. My housemate is too diligent. 

Oh, I forgot to mention that a lot of things in my collection are collectors themselves...OF DUST!

I'm just thinking of stupid jokes now. 

Z: So nothing is photographable?

S: I guess maybe, you know what, I just thought of something else, sometimes one of the cat pictures I have—I think there have been multiple times where I've taken a photo of it hanging on the wall in multiple places I've lived, and I think that I might want to have a new tradition of taking a picture of it in every new place where it hangs...which is a type of collecting.