I forgot Garbage Pail Kids stickers - and I actually did stick those, all over my bedroom door! I didn't get the Beano sticker albums, but those clear stickers sound great - and as for holograms!! The future!!!
& also, now Iâm thinking how the puffiness of the page-of-stickers you could buy was the ultimate luxury texture. And super-Ted stickers from the dentist. And star stickers in school books. âī¸
I have a "sticker column" outside my shop. I want to put there stickers I like so anyone can enjoy them but sometimes they might take them with them (as have I, taken *ahem* rescued *ahem* stickers from lonely places to bring to my column. It's a constant exercise in letting go. I love it when people add to it (especially stickers I like) . Also, my laptop is my sticker showcase. Sadly, too little space...
This is such a nice idea!! So do they actually get stuck down, or are they pinned with their backing paper? Laptops are a good sticker showcase, but then what happens when it's time to get a new laptop?!? So fraught with worry!!
They all get properly stuck! And the laptop I have to part with the stickers when I change it. It's hard for some of them. I still remember a great one I had on my previous laptop: a babushka doll that lifted her dress and she had a manly chest with abs!
Argh, Tor. I've been holding on to a sticker I got from the Studio Ghibli museum now for 18 years. I've got a Paul Frank Julius the monkey dressed as Adam Ant sticker I've had for decades. I WANT THEM TO LIVE THEIR BEST LIVES BUT I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO STICK THEM.
It's a nightmare, isn't it. A NIGHTMARE!!! Maybe offer them to some kind of institution/museum where they can be displayed in a case, still not STUCK, but at least everyone could see them??? STICKER MUSEUM PLEASE!!!
Wow! I remember selling your coin collection. A long distant memory!
I seem to recall that I treated my stickers much like my other toys and games. Lost in the play-moment all logic is forgotten, and the stickers got stuck, the Barbie/Sindy hair got cut, only to realise that I had permanently put my sticker on the wrong page! Barbie/Sindyâs hair was then permanently in tufts and upright.
Also, the actual activity we used to make out of going to the shop just to look at and plan future sticker purchases. The holy relics that they were. Especially the fuzzy ones!
And I reckon your attitude toward play is right - who wants to be the neurotic with stickers on their backings and Barbies/Sindys with long flowing hair?!
Such holy relics đđđ What can we get this excited about again - thoughts please!!
Love this, Tor. Stickers definitely featured prominently in my young life - I can still recall the smell of a sheet of scratch ânâ sniff pizza stickers I bought at Foolscap in Bristol (oregano basically). It was the early 80s era of scented gubbins - a Swiss roll flavoured eraser also lingers Proustian in my memory.
My first real collection *obsession* was Mad magazine, introduced to me by my sophisticated cousin in Oxford when I was about 12. I bought it obsessively for the next 5 years, along with back issues that required a postal order and a delay of at least 6 weeks to arrive. I still have them all, god help me, plus stacks of Mad paperbacks.
Scratch n sniff stickers were SO exciting weren't they. You're so right about the era of scented gubbins - I have a "theory" about why the 80s was a great time for childhood - that it was basically time when the line between adult and child taste totally blurred - everything was made of plastic, was tastelessly bright, lit up, was fun. All the stuff Tom Hanks filled his loft apartment with in Big, for grown-ups or kids... What a dreamy time!
I never got Mad magazine, I think that's so sophisticated of you! Imagine having to wait 6 weeks for anything now. It must have been amazingly exciting each time one arrived! Where do you keep them all??
I like your theory of the 80s - makes perfect sense to me. My Mad magazines are in a big pile in my studio with other later comics obsessions; superhero stuff then Love & Rockets, Eightball and Neat Stuff - more sophisticated indie comic fare :) I just dug out the first copy of Mad I bought, Jan '82, which has a fabulously garish cover - I'll put it on my insta in a mo ...
đ Ahhh the ultimate dilemma with stickers. I have the commit phobia until I decided to stick them in my diary each year and then I got to see them on a regular basis but also they were used. This being said i still have a draw full of them đ
A diary is a good idea... bet they are good joggers of your memory for what was happening at each time, too. I still have the amazing Bruegel temporary tattoos you sent me, for what occasion (maybe my own wedding?!?) could actually deserve them!
thank you for nudging these nostalgic thoughts :
đ§ Garbage pail kids stickers with pink gum.
đĒŠ Hologram World Cup Stickers
đ¨ The immense pleasure of those clear stickers you could reuse & move around in Beano sticker albums.
I forgot Garbage Pail Kids stickers - and I actually did stick those, all over my bedroom door! I didn't get the Beano sticker albums, but those clear stickers sound great - and as for holograms!! The future!!!
& also, now Iâm thinking how the puffiness of the page-of-stickers you could buy was the ultimate luxury texture. And super-Ted stickers from the dentist. And star stickers in school books. âī¸
I have a "sticker column" outside my shop. I want to put there stickers I like so anyone can enjoy them but sometimes they might take them with them (as have I, taken *ahem* rescued *ahem* stickers from lonely places to bring to my column. It's a constant exercise in letting go. I love it when people add to it (especially stickers I like) . Also, my laptop is my sticker showcase. Sadly, too little space...
This is such a nice idea!! So do they actually get stuck down, or are they pinned with their backing paper? Laptops are a good sticker showcase, but then what happens when it's time to get a new laptop?!? So fraught with worry!!
They all get properly stuck! And the laptop I have to part with the stickers when I change it. It's hard for some of them. I still remember a great one I had on my previous laptop: a babushka doll that lifted her dress and she had a manly chest with abs!
Argh, Tor. I've been holding on to a sticker I got from the Studio Ghibli museum now for 18 years. I've got a Paul Frank Julius the monkey dressed as Adam Ant sticker I've had for decades. I WANT THEM TO LIVE THEIR BEST LIVES BUT I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO STICK THEM.
It's a nightmare, isn't it. A NIGHTMARE!!! Maybe offer them to some kind of institution/museum where they can be displayed in a case, still not STUCK, but at least everyone could see them??? STICKER MUSEUM PLEASE!!!
Wow! I remember selling your coin collection. A long distant memory!
I seem to recall that I treated my stickers much like my other toys and games. Lost in the play-moment all logic is forgotten, and the stickers got stuck, the Barbie/Sindy hair got cut, only to realise that I had permanently put my sticker on the wrong page! Barbie/Sindyâs hair was then permanently in tufts and upright.
Also, the actual activity we used to make out of going to the shop just to look at and plan future sticker purchases. The holy relics that they were. Especially the fuzzy ones!
It really is isn't it!! đ
And I reckon your attitude toward play is right - who wants to be the neurotic with stickers on their backings and Barbies/Sindys with long flowing hair?!
Such holy relics đđđ What can we get this excited about again - thoughts please!!
xxx
Such sticker book memories! I can still smell the scratch-n-sniff ones in my mind's eye (nose)!
The amazing witchcraft of scratch-n-sniff!!
Love this, Tor. Stickers definitely featured prominently in my young life - I can still recall the smell of a sheet of scratch ânâ sniff pizza stickers I bought at Foolscap in Bristol (oregano basically). It was the early 80s era of scented gubbins - a Swiss roll flavoured eraser also lingers Proustian in my memory.
My first real collection *obsession* was Mad magazine, introduced to me by my sophisticated cousin in Oxford when I was about 12. I bought it obsessively for the next 5 years, along with back issues that required a postal order and a delay of at least 6 weeks to arrive. I still have them all, god help me, plus stacks of Mad paperbacks.
Scratch n sniff stickers were SO exciting weren't they. You're so right about the era of scented gubbins - I have a "theory" about why the 80s was a great time for childhood - that it was basically time when the line between adult and child taste totally blurred - everything was made of plastic, was tastelessly bright, lit up, was fun. All the stuff Tom Hanks filled his loft apartment with in Big, for grown-ups or kids... What a dreamy time!
I never got Mad magazine, I think that's so sophisticated of you! Imagine having to wait 6 weeks for anything now. It must have been amazingly exciting each time one arrived! Where do you keep them all??
I like your theory of the 80s - makes perfect sense to me. My Mad magazines are in a big pile in my studio with other later comics obsessions; superhero stuff then Love & Rockets, Eightball and Neat Stuff - more sophisticated indie comic fare :) I just dug out the first copy of Mad I bought, Jan '82, which has a fabulously garish cover - I'll put it on my insta in a mo ...
đ Ahhh the ultimate dilemma with stickers. I have the commit phobia until I decided to stick them in my diary each year and then I got to see them on a regular basis but also they were used. This being said i still have a draw full of them đ
A diary is a good idea... bet they are good joggers of your memory for what was happening at each time, too. I still have the amazing Bruegel temporary tattoos you sent me, for what occasion (maybe my own wedding?!?) could actually deserve them!
Oh I still have mine too, maybe a Brueghel inspired party ? đđŦ
Love your art and your writing!
Thanks for sharing,
Danny
Cleveland Heights, OH
Thank you Danny! Hello from overcast London!
That's such an evocative portrait of Maud Wagner! I am in love with your work <3