Collective Storytelling Q & A

The upcoming show, Collective Storytelling, taking place at Hashtag Gallery explores the connection between collector and object, and the way in which collected objects speak of their collector. I was asked a few questions by curator, Erika Balint, in order to give further context to my collection of matches which she is curating as part of the show.

Erika Balint: Which was the first object in the collection?

Krystina Plante: My collection didn't start out with just one set of matches, but rather a round white cookie tin filled with about thirty vintage matchbooks and matchboxes. My mother had bought them for me at a garage sale one summer, knowing that I would find them interesting.

EB: What are the governing factors of the collection? What makes the cut?

KP: Volume is the governing factor which has taken over this collection, rather than any sort of strict specificity. Any set of matches which are bought, found, or given to me make the cut, regardless of whether they be damaged, plain, empty, or a duplicate.

EB: Do you have a favourite?

KP: I find the matchboxes most favourable. I enjoy the bulkiness of them, and the way they rattle around loudly inside. I like that when you slide open the box the heavy smell of sulfur that has been trapped inside quickly bursts out. I like that the matchsticks are made from wood rather than paper, sometimes with an exciting warp to them, and that you can take each one out and lay them on the table, making shapes and spelling out words and building little stick huts and towers, before dutifully putting each one back into their little box, back to bed.
Of all of them, my absolute favourite is my "Scottish Bluebell" matchbox. An immensely tight halftone illustrates large Bluebell flowers dancing around a scroll containing the name, and a lush Scottish mountainside smothered in blue and violet flowers adorns the background. The striker on the side of the box has been applied by hand rather than machine, with an imperfect brushstroke of coarse sand. The match-heads have been dipped in the brightest shade of indigo, and the box oddly notes "average contents 43". The back of the box illustrates a game: "Match Play. No. 3 In A Series of Eighteen. Using 8 matches make 2 squares and four triangles".
I desperately wish that I had all eighteen matchboxes in the series.

EB: Over what period of time have they been collected?

KP: I have been collecting matches for seven years now. In the beginning I wasn't in the pursuit of adding to the collection of matches that I had been given. I was satisfied in simply coveting the ones that I had. It wasn't until four years later that I started avidly expanding my collection; first by accident when a discarded matchbook on the sidewalk caught my eye, then occasionally when I bought cigarettes at the dépanneur, and now habitually seeking them out.

EB: What types of feelings or memories do the objects evoke?

KP: Some matches in my collection evoke great feelings of nostalgia. I remember the person who have them to me, the events of that particular day, or the significant things that were going on in my life during that period.
Others, mainly the vintage matches, evoke my own fabricated narrative surrounding their origin, previous owner, the countries, states or provinces that they travelled through in somebody else's coat pocket.
The one that provokes my imagination the most is the wide white matchbook with a silver embossment that reads, "Lori and Mike. June 21, 1986". I often wonder who this couple is that was married two years prior to my birth? Are they still together? Have I unknowingly interacted with either of them at some point in my life? At the library? On the bus? Do they live in one of the houses that I repeatedly pass on my bicycle? Did they die in an awful car wreck years ago? Did Lori have a scandalous affair with another man and later divorce Mike? Do any of their wedding guests still have this keepsake? Will I ever know?

EB: How would it feel to lose or part with them?

KP: To part with this collection would be to part with the most loved paintings hung in a salon. They have each taken on a role as art piece rather than object. I appreciate each one for it's unique weight, smell, imagery, font, dimension, colour choice, the quality of halftone when looked upon closely, and the stories that they seem to evoke. I gaze upon them with the same wonderment and adorn-full eye as I do the artwork hung about my home.

EB: How/where do you house or store the objects?

KP: My matches are housed in a large hurricane glass, placed atop my work desk in my bedroom. Here they serve as constant visual inspiration. As I collect new matches I drop them into the hurricane glass, always leaving my favourite ones on top for my enjoyment.