The stereotypical collector — whether in a book, film, or on TV — seems to hail from one of the following: Coin Collector, Comic Collector, Record Collector, Baseball Card Collector, or Stamp Collector. In my life, the only one of those I haven’t done is collect baseball cards…but the only collection that didn’t follow me into adulthood is the stamp collection. I’ve still got all the comics from my youth, my vinyl collection has expanded enormously, and I still check my pocket change for wheatstraw pennies, new state quarters, or old nickels. My stamp collection was all but forgotten until my parents discovered an abandoned shoebox of unorganized stamps in a closet. I don’t know what happened to the books I had filled with hinged stamps categorized by country and year. However, as a pack rat, I couldn’t just let these abandoned stamps go to the trash, so I brought them home.

Stamp Collecting has been around since the 17th century, as long as stamps have been used as postage. As tiny works of art, stamps benefited from the forgery-resistant fine printing quality reserved for money, but had the condition of being worthless once used. While the mail recipients didn’t need to feel bad about throwing out their stamps, collectors began to hold on to them, trying to obtain versions they’d never seen before and stamps from distant regions. In the 1800s, combined with quicker modes of travel and widespread colonialism, the hobby of stamp collecting grew more common. Mostly it was a fun pastime for children, but professional collectors began to join in the fun. As with other antiques and collectibles, an industry has developed devoted to producing price guides, printing catalogs that identify the rare from the mundane, and helping collectors keep their prized possessions in the highest quality condition as possible.

Today, postage stamp collecting is quite common and is often supported and encouraged by each country’s postal service. Without the hobby of stamp collecting, there would be little incentive for any post office to produce commemorative or creative postage stamps like the Favorite Children’s Book Animal set from earlier this year. Up until a recent remodeling, the main post office here in Fargo had a dedicated “Philatelic Window,” designed to look like a old-world post office window, especially to help collectors add to their cache of stamps. Both the USPS and the American Philatelic Society have children-focused programs to encourage new collectors.

Like many collections, stamp collecting can be either financially focused or recreationally focused. While it can be encouraging to find a rare and valuable stamp, many collectors focus on one country, type of stamp, or stamp subject matter. The wide variety of images placed on stamps across the world leaves nearly any subject open for collecting on a stamp: comic characters, authors, classic art, or any animal you can imagine have all been represented amongst others. Getting a stamp collection started requires little more than a scrapbook, some stamp hinges, and a pair of tweezers. Cancelled stamps, ones used to pay for a stamp’s transportation, arrive attached to an envelope and require a short bath in warm water to become separated from the paper. Tweezers are used to prevent the skin’s oils from staining the stamp, and hinges allow a stamp to be mounted in a scrapbook with minimal trouble or damage. Pre-printed scrapbooks are available for generalist collectors, and can be quite informative regarding other countries and their own various postage.

A collection can go quite a while relying entirely on the mail that enters the collector’s household, but after a point a collector will need to turn to outside sources for their stamps. Penpals are an obvious source for foreign stamps, and the Young Stamp Collectors of America offers a service for children to easily connect with distant fellow collectors. Trading events are a way to connect with other stamp collectors and get a closer look at a wider variety of stamps. eBay, of course, has a full section for stamp collectors at rather reasonable prices. Because so many people have collected stamps at some point in their lives, entire collections often turn up at auctions and estate sales.

I’m not sure if rediscovering these lost stamps rekindles my interest in a stamp collection, but I did enjoy digging through the tiny colorful bits of paper, remembering that “Magyar” means Hungary and that Karl Marx appeared prominently on German postage. I suppose I can’t let them be tossed back in the shoebox, can I? They may wait until one of our kids shows interest in stamp collecting. As a collection, stamps teach about geography, require little storage space, and do not require difficult skills. In the interest of encouraging children to collect, I can see why philatelic associations have such active children’s features. My interest may not have extended beyond childhood, but the art of collecting stamps had not faded in its appeal and charm.

We continue our talk with Ryan Myers.

David : Now, if you could suggest a few creators who you really think are changing the face of art right now, who would you mention?

Myers : Wow, good question… You know I don’t think I could justly answer that question, there are so many great people… the huge, omnipresent guys and ladies I guess would be the ones that always seem to be in Juxtapoz, like [Mark] Ryden, Camille Rose Garcia, Baseman… It’s weird though, there are like first generation folks. I got into this culture a little late. I sort of stumbled in a back door. There’s so many other great artists though. That’s why I went with the cliché answer.

David : I’m getting so tired of reading about them, but at least they’re all old and balding like me, so I feel better. Did you have one of those moments where you were doing your own thing and suddenly realized ‘HEY! These guys are doing it too! And it has a name!’?

Myers : Sort of. I was trained as an illustrator, so I was trying to gear myself towards magazines and stuff. I got a few jobs, but my portfolio consisted of stuff I thought was amusing, and that’s not really the best way to get hired. So, I tweaked my personal work a bit, gave up magazine aspirations and geared myself towards galleries. I was lucky - I had a very supportive gallery help me when I first got into the game. Actually, I found out about the Juxtapoz crowd through KidRobot, but everyone seems to always know ryden …so I knew but didn’t know.

David : Back to the Melancholia plushes and you, do you have ideas or plans for future collectible-type art objects?

Myers : Yeah, absolutely… one the cards for the Melancholia figures I was initially going to put [in] series one. I have been working up some ideas for what series two might be, but I think that’s a little ways off yet.

David : I was lucky enough to get a pink AND a black bunny, though the pink was ’shortpacked’… and there’s a mystery figure. Care to reveal what it might be?

Myers : As far as the mystery figure goes, I think I’ve made 3 or 4 so far. I think its pretty obvious what I might be. How ‘bout you guess and I’ll tell you if you’re right? [laughs]. That way I don’t feel guilty about spilling my guts.

David : I figured that it might be the BEAR?

Myers : You got it. Yeah, the bear was sort of a catalyst for me early on. I have this teddy bear picnic painting that is quite iconic for me.

David : Can these be purchased from your website?

Myers : Yes they can! I actually just made the doll page about a week ago. For now it’s only the Melancholia plushies, but I hope sometime soon [to have] more.

David : What words of advice might you give to aspiring art-crafters?

Myers : I think just try and be true to yourself. I do things that amuse myself primarily. I love when other people get it… but its mostly about creating something that you like yourself - that and persistence. Thick skin is good in the art world. That. and work ‘til you’re passing out. Remember [that] Picasso did sculpture as a hobby, and he was one of the most prolific sculptors ever.

David : I’ve found that a lot of the people who are already involved in it are so receptive and interested in what you have to bring into the scene, because they genuinely love what they do.

Myers : Exactly. The first time I ever had the Melancholia bunnies in public, Heidi from mypapercrane came up, (and she does so much plush its crazy), and she had some really nice things to say. That’s the difference in the crafting versus painting communities. Painters are behind-the-back talkers, and I don’t see crafters doing that.

David : Plus, CUTE GIRLS like crazy.

Myers : The art community on a whole is populated by an unnatural amount of cute girls. It’s dangerous for married guys. [laughs]

David : Do you find yourself collecting anything else?

Myers : Absolutely. I am quite obsessive about nutcrackers and smokers as well.

David : Smokers?

Myers : Yeah… oh, if you don’t know, you’re missing out. Same family as nutcrackers, I guess, but they are little smokers quite literally. Basically, it’s an incense burner, but let’s say it’s a cobbler - he’d be smoking a pipe where the smoke pours out. It’s very old world. I think just the craftsmanship is what attracts me to them.

David : You can see that appreciation for fine details in the plushes, certainly.

Myers : The way I figure it, those little bunnies represent me, so I wouldn’t want to send out something that is sub-par. I’m borderline riddled with guilt [to] have “short packed” the rare pink Melancholia bunny. I may lose sleep. Not really, but I feel crappy.

David : I got one! And that’s all that matters. Kubricks pack some of those guys 1 in every 96 boxes. You’re doing good. Spectacular Spider-Ham was rare as all get out.

Myers : You know what… I think the exclusivity thing helps drive demand, but it also backfires sometimes. I had a woman onetime literally yelling at me after she found out there were pink bunnies, and I wouldn’t or couldn’t just “give” her one. The good part was that I had no idea what each box was. I don’t secretly mark the boxes somehow. I love when people open them in front of me so I know what they get. Maybe when I hit 100 made, I’ll make something uber rare for anniversary purposes.

David : That would be stellar. I’m partial to gold metallics.

Myers : I actually had plans for urethane-based figures that would be handpainted, but those would be much more limited. They sorta fell by the wayside in the wake of the Melancholia plushies. I am a big fan of your meatbots by the way - not sure I ever voiced that.

David : Thanks! I’d like to do a lot more with them. I think they’ve become a signature piece. Of course, they’re REALLY slow to make.

Myers : Well, it’s like the advice I gave earlier… it’s a niche. People like them. Run with it! I run my poor bunnymen and bearboys ragged.

David : That seems to be the way to go, seriously. Find a signature and drive it home - like that bigfoot guy.

Myers : I mean seriously. As far as I know, he IS Bigfoot, but everyone knows him.

David : That guy never does ANYTHING different. It kinda irks me, but then again, he’s in Juxtapoz.

Myers : And in lots of shows. I wonder if he had the pseudonym ‘Bigfoot’ before he used the image - that would be funny, sort of a convenience painting for him.

David : Like when supervillians have real names like ‘Victor von Doom’ or ‘Otto Octavius’. Do they really have a CHOICE in becoming Dr. Doom and Dr. Octopus?

Myers : Well, hope for his sake his name is, like, Rob, and not Hugo Foot.

David : [laughs]

When I was seven years old I inherited a beautiful antique piano from my mother’s aunt. I loved that piano. The wood was inlaid with swirls and designs that had faded in different ways over the decades and inside was a yellowed tuner’s label with the date January 6, 1906 and “tuners to the royal family” (or something like that - I’ve forgotten the exact wording) and I wondered if my piano had stood in a London parlor decades before. It locked with an old fashioned skeleton key that I eventually put on a cord and wore as a necklace. I learned how to play on that piano. The keys had an annoying habit of sticking in summer and the piano was perpetually out of tune, but it was mine.

At the end of the nineteenth century and beginning decades of the twentieth, pianos were very common and most homes that could afford a piano had one. For that reason, there are still many pianos from that era available today and because they are so plentiful they are not particularly valuable. Also, one hundred years ago piano makers were still refining the techniques the used to create the instruments and the majority of pianos made in that era were not of good enough quality that they can still be played today. Player pianos in working order tend to be more valuable because they are harder to find, as are the player piano music rolls to go with them.

As kids who collected, we were out and about, scavenging for another piece to add to our collections. If our treasure was acorns, we were outside searching the ground or climbing the trees to find more. If they were stickers, we did odd jobs and raced with fists full of money to the corner store for a fix. When our collections outgrew one shoebox, drawer or container, we created new methods to store them. As they grew larger, we organized them. When sharing our treasures, we knew when and where we discovered each piece — and the history of the object was as important as the object itself. Oh yes, our collections were literally our pride and joy.

In a world where kids may plant themselves in front of passive entertainment, such as TV or video games, it may be time for parents to get Joe and Sue off the couch and out and about collecting. Even if that means a fishing tackle box full of Barbie shoes, rows of Matchbox cars, or shelves full of rocks — because collecting results in practical lessons.

A child who collects will not squander his allowance on a candy bar when he could buy a new piece for his collection. Earing money, saving money, the value of a dollar, these are practical lessons in simple math and fiscal responsibility that every child should have.

A child who has a collection will naturally become interested in history, willingly do research, and happily build organizational skills. These abilities will strengthen because the child herself has an interest in discovering more about what she collects. She will seek more information about what she collects as well as how to store and care for the prized pieces in her collection.

Support the child’s interests, and you’ll have a child who happily takes the box out from under the bed to proudly display his collection. (That’s just steps away from a child who, out of passion and respect for his collection, keeps his room clean!)

Have a shy child? One with poor self esteem? Or a teenager reluctant to talk with you about anything? Ask her about her collection — but you’d better be sitting down, because the answer will take awhile! Since a collection is a reflection of her own personal tastes, and because she and only she has all the information on when and where items were found, the child becomes the expert who will tell you all about it.

If you’d like to get your child interested in collecting, or interacting with other kid collectors, check out these resources:

The Science Museum of Minnesota has a Collectors’ Corner where kids can bring in natural objects they found and earn points — the points can then be used to trade for other specimens.

The Smithsonian has a Kids Collecting website with lots of information and videos to get ideas on starting collecting, including pop culture collectibles.

Gardening With Kids has info on ways to tie in collecting with gardening.

Pin Fever has a Kids Zone page with lots of info for beginners as well as a list of other kids who want to trade.

The Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory collecting tracks (footprints).

To see what other kids are collecting, visit ZuZu’s Kids Collect page — and children can even join the own online exhibit.

It was in the dark backalleys of MySpace that I first encountered Ryan Myers. In my desire to network myself into oblivion, I’d befriended hundreds upon hundreds of artists who seemed to be working in the same vein as myself. I also befriended pretty girls, because you can never have too many pretty girls aware of you. Mr. Myers grabbed my attention, though, from among the sea of creatives and pierced young thangs.

I’m a fan of plush items, most notably those bizarre little items that are hand-made, unique and completely out of the ordinary. ‘Plush’ has the automatic connotation of being for children, cute and soft and bedtime-huggable. I sleep with my fair share of plush cthulhu dolls and Spider-Men and octopeds well beyond an acceptable age to do so, and I’m not ashamed. Midwinter nights in upstate New York are frigid, and a little stuffed Hellboy might be just the right size to plug that hole at the bottom of your blanket. It’s purely for survival, you see.

Plush figures, especially those made by artists, are recently finding themselves highly desirable. We’ve gone far beyond the Beanie Baby obsession of yore and entered art and craft territory, populated by the Uglydolls and Shawnimals, and the countless creations of other mad sewing geniuses. Ryan Myers has found his way among these folks with his Melancholia mini-plush figures. These are handmade in small quantities, and packaged in mystery boxes, and completely sucked me into their charmingly morose world. For a mere eight dollars each, I couldn’t let myself miss out on them, and I wanted to know more.

Collin David [for CQ] : I suppose that the first question I should be asking you is exactly WHAT it is that you do. So what is it that you do?

Ryan Myers : I’m an artist trying to make himself known, I suppose.

David : Well, I came across you on MySpace and totally was blown away by your Melancholia mini-plushes.

Myers : Thank you, I appreciate that. I actually did a lot of foot work with them before I put them on MySpace.

David : Where are these coming from?

Myers : Well, initially the idea was derived from a reappearing figure in some of my paintings, which was a dead bunnyman. The first versions were quite larger, more of the uglydoll ilk. I gave away a few to friends and such. I thought about marketing some that way… they had x-out eyes and numbers on their chests.

David : X-eyes are the bomb.

Myers : Yes the bomb, but a pain in the ass hand sewn. They were metallic red, and it was quite cool, but I evolved them out of necessity, unfortunately. [Produces images of the original plushes]

David : Nice! Where did the face get changed to a painted face?

Myers : Those were about 10 inches tall, so when they got smaller. I think it was for sanity purposes.

David : These Melancholia are the first example of a semi-printed plush I’ve seen. It’s really innovative.

Myers : Yeah, I got a little inspiration from a friend of mine on that. He figures all this crazy art stuff out, then passes it along to me. We figured out a way to get my paintings onto Zippos at about the same time I was working on the smaller versions of the bunnies, and I think the idea kind of carried over. That, and the sullenness is more subtle with an alive face opposed to x-eyes.

David : It’s wonderful to innovate on these mundane and unusual processes and make totally unexpected things out of them.

Myers : Either that, or it’s art whoring. Haven’t decided yet. [laughs]

David : I like to think of it as dissecting what exists and making better things out of it!

Myers : I’m a ‘glass half empty’ guy.

David : I think that my glass is half full of hypersensitive bees and old milk. For real.

Myers : No, but seriously… since the shape is so basic, I like having inlaid detail, not reinventing the wheel. Just adding the bling rims.

David : There you go! You’re more adept at the hip analogies.

Myers : Either that or I watch too much ‘Pimp My Ride’.

David : These Melancholia mini-plushes are about 3 inches tall and also seem really intricate and labor-intensive.

Myers : I actually hand sew them. I am not handy enough with a sewing machine for the type of curves and things that need to be sewn. I’ve got it down quite well - I figure I’ve made about 50 to date, maybe more. All I know is I am running out of boxes.

David : Do you find that consistency is an issue with mass-production of this nature, or are the possible inconsistencies part of the inherent awesomeness?

Myers : I like the fact that each one is a little different…. Even though I guess I am sort of mass producing them each one is a hand made art object. I have spoken to some other more prominent plush people and they were aghast at how inexpensive I price them…

David : I admit I was also!

Myers : … but that was part of my reasoning for making them to begin with. I wanted people who liked my paintings but didn’t want to spend the sort of money - they deserve to be able to still have something hand made by me.

David : Who are some of the big-name plush people you spoke to? I met Jenny Harada (who is semi-plush) at Renegade and all of those people are incredibly kind.

Myers : Yeah yeah, I like her work quite a bit. Mainly it was Heidi of mypapercrane fame. We had some MySpace correspondence, [and] then we were in a show together. Strangely enough, I had some bunnies at Renegade but never have been to one myself. The gallery that sort of reps me in Philadelphia took some along with them and wound up selling them all. I would like to think of myself as semi plush too. That’s well on the way to my childhood dream of a nerf world.

David : So you’ve found yourself involved in that whole crafting subculture now.

Myers : Exactly - its weird, straddling the line. I think stores like KidRobot, amongst the many others, helped to blur the line of art and consumerism.

David : Do you shop there? What do you find yourself collecting for inspiration?

Myers : I was just there this past weekend, I love that place. I don’t really go there for anything specific… the Dunnys of course are always in the forefront, and they are fun. I have bought, painted and sold a bunch of the 8″ Munny. I have 3 in my closet waiting to be painted.

David : I totally have one ready to go also.

Myers : So now to answer your question which I avoided - umm, I don’t really gear myself towards any one artist or figure. There’s some Japanese guys or ladies who are great. I find a lot of stuff just surfing and browsing names, like Toki Doki. His Bastardino is great - the little dog in a cactus outfit. I tend to favor things in suits, I guess cause its similar to what I do.

David : Yeah, I dig the whole masquerade face-stickin’-out thing. It’s a subtle theme in the whole pop-surrealist world right now. And tentacles.

Myers : Yeah, my work gets compared a lot to Kathie Olivas, who works with a lot of those themes. She’s borderline-big reputation wise so I don’t mind the comparison. P. S. : I love that you said ‘pop surrealism’ instead of ‘lowbrow’. You just stepped up in my cool book.

Stay tuned for Wednesday, when I drop the rest of this man’s heavy, Melancholia soul all up on you.