Foreword

Greetings! I'm Molly. This is my first blog experience and I'm pretty dang excited about it. There are a variety of reasons why I've decided to embark on this pseudo-assignment.
I'd like to make it clear that I am not an aspiring photographer, and I don’t pretend to be. Some of my closest friends and family are exceptionally talented in that area, but I can’t say it has ever been a genuine passion of mine.
Onto business. Recently, many of my Facebook friends caught my attention with albums titled “30 day challenge”, in which they followed a list of topics via photos that defined them. All of this for a period of - you guessed it - 30 days. I wanted to pursue this in my own way by making my own ‘list’. (Side note, I have planning this for the past few weeks; likely driving my roommate crazy by scrawling ideas onto paper in the middle of the night.) Regardless, I am excited for my ideas to come to fruition, and truly hope it turns out the way I have been imagining it. I invite you to leave comments on anything I post. I have always been a firm believer that knowing what everyone else thinks, does, in fact, matter. It puts things into perspective and allows us to be well-rounded individuals, which is definitely a quality I would hope to be recognized as.
One primary hesitation I have about this project is ultimately how self-centered it is. Completely. It can be chalked up to self-expression, art, or anything else… but in the end, things like this are primarily concerned with “me” and “I”. I struggle with this in an age of social media. Since the time I had a Myspace at age 16, I began this practice (we began this practice) of showcasing ourselves and finding endless ways to portray how unique we were. With Facebook and Twitter, I find it to be a double-edged sword. I want everyone to see… and yet, I don’t want anyone to see. Sometimes, all I really want, all I really need, is an outlet to mass-communicate my rawest emotions on a medium where no one is guaranteed to see it.
So…yes; with this project, I admit to being yet another self-dissecting 20-something. But I was programmed this way, and I have discovered a lot of important things as a result. This is about being honest with myself, regardless of all outside influences. This isn’t for you or for them, this is for me. It’s a time capsule. How will I feel tomorrow? In a week? a month? A year? Only time will tell.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Day 18: Most people don't know that

I am a bit of a pack rat.
I save just about everything because of sentimental attachment.
          Trinkets, knickknacks, newspaper clippings, buttons, bottle caps, boxes... you name it. I can't bring myself to throw away cards that were given to me decades ago. I find fortune cookies to be kooky yet save-worthy. I save product labels with unique and interesting packaging. When I was in middle school, I began a habit of tearing out magazine ads (those housed in everything from National Geographic to Real Simple) and housed the collection in a folder. This quickly became two folders, and then three, and so on, until I decided my collection needed a more permanent home with ample space for new additions and varying mediums. It came to be known as my 'art morgue', and is now a large Rubbermaid container - one that I insisted fitting into the car the day my parents moved me into my freshman college dorm. 
         Initially, I only began collecting because I had a curiosity for design and pretty visuals. Yet, as it transpired, I set my sights on an advertising degree and truly learned from what I had saved all of those years. I began to develop my own art directions preferences for look and style. I often used certain pieces to make artsy cards for friends' birthdays and other milestones (something I wish I had more time for as of late). Incredibly, there are things that I mentally keep track of and know that exist in my art morgue, but there are definitely moments when I'm leafing through the lot of it and have the pleasant surprise of finding a gem I don't remember saving.  To anyone else, its all just paper, really. But I love every piece and every scrap, and will never stop collecting. I save, because it can all be used for the right project.
One's trash is another's treasure .
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