Met with this bunch this afternoon to distribute objects for Thrift Store Stories. Go to the Thrift Store Stories page to see what everybody received!

    (crossposted on Patreon)
    
     Everyone in my immediate family (with myself as the one stubborn exception) plays roller hockey. While I was at a game last night, it occurred to me what a unique sound the sport has. I captured bits and pieces of it via an Instagram video, but I would really like to record some more at a game and create a sound score with it.

     I've been a fan of thrift stores since I discovered them as a poor college student. (This was my first turn as a college student, back when I was in my early 20s. Academia and I have continued an on-and-off relationship ever since.)

     There are some items that I am always tempted by (vintage suitcases, briefcases, and typewriters.  I own three different typewriters, and only one of them is currently working.) I find thrifts can be very useful for costuming, especially for those of us on a limited budget. I am always a little saddened by obviously handmade items that were made with an investment of time and care, probably given as a gifts, and have now been consigned to a dusty aisle in the store. And there is the delight of finding something funny, or just absolutely absurd. Who wore those purple sequin pants, anyway? Why did they feel it was an item they needed in their closet, and at what point did they decide they were no longer a purple sequin pants wearing sort of person? I am always curious about the lives of the objects before they came to sit on those shelves, and it got the part of my creative brain that is most akin to a mad scientist brewing.  What would happen if you gave artists those bits and pieces, and an assignment to create something with it or inspired by it? What sort of life would those objects then take on?

     I have a group of six brave volunteers (including myself*) who have agreed to take on the task of transforming an object and/objects that I bring them from excursions to thrift stores and creating...something. Dance/Video/Sound/Visual Art/Music/Writing/Something I haven't thought of but that nonetheless will be awesome.  I am hoping this will be a first iteration of an ongoing project, so for now I have drawn from a pool of people who are local to me. We are meeting within the next couple of weeks, distributing objects, and will have some responses up between now and the end of March. I'm excited to see where this takes us, and perhaps expand to more participants after this first experiment!

*I gave my kids a price limit and made them choose an object for me. Picking my own felt like cheating.