Everyone collects something. Some people collect shot glasses and spoons. Others collect stamps or coins. The urge to gather and keep random, useless things is an extremely strange activity.
Several ASU students have odd collections. Some are comical, some are sentimental and some are strangely symbolic.
Mark Brennan, a 27-year-old interdisciplinary studies major has a sentimental collection. Wearing a gold ASU shirt and matching hat, he displays his collection of wine corks and matchbooks on his dining room table.
Brennan started his collection the day he met his wife, Hillary, while working at the Hungry Hunter steakhouse in Tucson, Ariz.
Ever since that evening, Brennan has been collecting matchbooks and wine corks from their special times together, including anniversaries, Valentine's Day, and of course, their wedding. The couple has been married for two years.
"I would describe my collection as sentimental because I associate these items with everywhere we have been and what we have done together," Brennan says.
But Brennan isn't satisfied with his collection jumbled up in a drawer.
"I am looking for a shadow box that's open-and-close so I can get in and out, because I am sure I will be adding more to the collection," he says.
Romance and weddings also sparked 20-year-old Erica Guttery's collection, though hers has an unexpected twist.
The journalism major collects tacky wedding announcements.
The collection started out as a joke. Guttery and her friends thought it would be funny to put these unsightly announcements into a scrapbook.
"I am at a loss for words of why you would pick these photos to display one of the happiest days of your life," she says.
Little did Guttery know what began as a joke would turn into community involvement.
"Any time anyone finds one, they'll send it to me. My friend's sisters and brothers that live out of the house or that are married will send them to me in the mail," she says.
Although the book is not displayed in Guttery's room, she gets a good laugh out of bringing it out once and a while.
When asked about the criteria for her assortment of announcements, Guttery simply says, "The worse, the better."
ASU Panhellenic Council President Shannon Kelly also has an unusual collection.
Decrepit houses, gas stations and factories are fascinating to her. During her senior year of high school, the psychology major was a teaching assistant for a photography class. One of the students brought in a photo of an abandoned farm on a "practice" roll of film, and she was hooked.
She quickly developed a passion for taking photographs of abandoned establishments. She only uses black and white film because "there is something very lonesome about black and white, so it kind of captures the whole raw emotion of what's been left behind."
Her favorite photograph is an image of a house that has "a part that is completely decrepit, and there's a part you can see someone coming home to. ... It's like the embodiment of life and death to me."
Kelly says many people misunderstand her collection.
"I don't show a lot of people this book because they don't understand it. But, I am proud of it because it is something that touches me, and it's an expression of different things I see," she says.
Not everyone is going to understand why people collect the things they do -- beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Some use their collections as a form of self-expression; others collect just for a good laugh. Others keep items as reminders of the exciting times in their lives. What invokes emotions and memories for one individual may seem strange to another.
One person's trash is another person's treasure, and beauty can be found in anything.
Reach the reporter at callie.parkinson@asu.edu
