Bag Lady
I can’t remember when I started collecting bags (shopping…not handbags)…I do know I was already in my twenties as, before that, I didn’t even carry a purse. Not having enough money to do much shopping outside Zellers and Woolworths there weren’t many bags I’d want to hang onto and start collecting.
It’s not really a ‘collection’ per se, just bags I’ve picked up over time and saved more as souvenirs from the shops or events I was at. Some were used again and some were just stashed away. My first one was actually from Bloomingdales when I was there working for my employer, a glass artist who had me assist at a trade show there. She actually said she was saving nice bags so that when she became a ‘bag lady’ she’d have some nice things to put her ‘stuff’ in…I think I took that to heart, being a ‘starving artist’ at the time it wasn’t incomprehensible that I might end up needing those bags.
My bag from the Cabbagetown Festival in Toronto when I won an award, bags from my years in the One of a Kind show in Chicago and a bag from one of the best fabric stores in Toronto, Designer Fabric Outlet, sadly now gone.
Lovely cloth bags from markets, from the Beach Studio Tour I founded in ’94. It has a lino cut print by Heidi Burkheardt and one from when I purchased something from a Tsunami fund drive.
The dots and stripes bags were in a package on the back of an English magazine…I kept buying the magazine even after there were no more free bags as it was a great mag. Growing up in England there were always free things being given away with magazines: poppet necklaces, ballerina cards, etc.
Yes, I got to go to St Barts in the Caribbean! A surprise from my husband when we were vacationing on a nearby island. What a hoot, driving around the island (I said scream if you see Jimmy Buffett…I do all the Caribbean driving), then wandering around the chic shops. We’d see a wonderful pair of shoes then put them down when we saw the $600US price tag leaving the shop giggling! We had a great burger dinner though. I got this bag when I bought a fun top.
I purchased something from Gold & Ginger to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday…this one is 7/150…a limited edition.
Here I see a couple of Kingston bags, one from the City and one from Artfest, a show I do each year in City Park. A crocheted bag I may have bought at a yard sale, a Vogue bag that I thought was so cute I paid $25 for a one year subscription just to get it. The pink and black one on the lower left is a knit weave bag made on a knitting machine and then lined. The last time I gave a seminar in Charlottetown PEI all the attendees got one, made by the women putting on the seminar and this is mine. I’ll be back there this fall for my third time, how lovely to be asked three times!
I’m making this a bit of a tour…I wonder what bags I’ll pick up in the East!
