When people find out the name of my blog they always ask one question. "How did you come up with that name?" I'm sure what they really want to say is, "That's a stupid name." Well, the name came from someone who has inspired me for nearly as long as I can remember...Andy Warhol. He's not my hero or my idol. I don't aspire to be like him. In fact, in many ways I think Andy Warhol was a fraud. A brilliant, eccentric fraud, but a fraud nonetheless.
So how does one make the leap from a brilliant fraud to boxes of junk? Well, let me tell you. When Andy Warhol died, they found hundreds, if not thousands of boxes in his home and factory. What was in these boxes? JUNK. Ok, so maybe they weren't entirely filled with junk, but for the most part they were. The man kept everything. Old napkins, mail, receipts, etc. It is said that he kept a box next to his desk and he would drop things in it like one would drop things into a trash can or recycling bin. When a box was full, he would pack it up and store it away.
More than 10 years after his death, The Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh was looking for someone to inventory and catalog every article in these boxes. I met with them and would have loved to have take the job, but it just wasn't meant to be. In the time since then, I've often wondered about the things found in those boxes. Perhaps I find this so fascinating because, I too keep boxes of junk. Mine are a little different than Mr. Warhol's, but they are boxes of junk just the same.
