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Keeping Skor: Creativity, Curiosity, and the Things We Keep. A podcast about why people collect the things they love. Each episode begins with a collection - but the conversation quickly expands into something deeper: memory, imagination, and the choices we make about what matters. Through thoughtful conversations with collectors of all kinds, Keeping Skor explores the stories, passions, and meaning behind the objects people choose to keep.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, no, either way is completely fine, but,
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, I find talking to people on the phone feels a little bit more natural for me.
Daisy: For sure, same. I'm a cha… I'm a phone chatter.
Stephen Skorski: Are ya?
Daisy: Yeah, I have, like, an hour commute to work, so every single day I'm calling at least, like, 10 different people to see who's gonna pick up.
Stephen Skorski: That's awesome! I do a very similar thing on my drive from New Jersey to North Carolina.
Stephen Skorski: And it's so wonderful when somebody awesome picks up, and you get, like, you know, just a fantastic phone call, and time just flies by. It's really good.
Daisy: For sure.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, so, yeah, this is actually really fun, because we, of course, have never met.
Stephen Skorski: And… All I know is what Brandon has told me, which is almost zero.
Stephen Skorski: So… which is… but to me, this is so fun, being a phone person, and just enjoying meeting people. Basically, Brandon has said, yeah, Daisy's really cool, you'll really enjoy talking to her, so, you know, cool by association is pretty much the way
Stephen Skorski: I live my life, right? Brandon is cool, you know, he's one of my good friends, he says you're awesome, so…
Daisy: Same. We… him and I actually met, I was working at an art gallery in Indiana, and he had his MFA exhibition, so we met him and his wife in Bloomington, Indiana, and somehow we all ended up in Massachusetts, and now we're just…
Daisy: We kept the friendship going, and they're, like, some of my best friends here, so I… I appreciate him more than you even know.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, that's awesome. I mean, that, that, yeah, he's great. He's really fantastic.
Stephen Skorski: So, actually, I'm so happy… I mean, just everything you just said is new, right? New information for me. So I do, of course, want to talk about your tiny things, but I'd love to just kind of get to know you a little bit first. So…
Stephen Skorski: maybe, just to kick things off a little bit, what… what does your normal day look like? Like, what's a… what's a day in the life of Daisy?
Daisy: So, I… for my full-time job, I am a display artist, so I… I currently work full-time for a retail company called Anthropologie, and I do all of their window displays, so it's hard to pinpoint
Daisy: what a usual day looks like for me, because there really is no usual day. Like, I'm working… right now, I am working on a…
Daisy: a huge, like, wind chime installation, I would call it. And basically, the past 2 days, I've spent hand sanding
Daisy: wooden dowels, and painting them, and adding little ball and chains to them, and that's what I'm doing this week, but last week I was making
Daisy: An oversized umbrella made
Daisy: from plywood and wooden dowels and some silkscreen fabric, and it's shaped like a giant daffodil. So that's probably one of the coolest things I've made recently, actually. So, yeah, there's no usual day for me. I get up at 5 o'clock in the morning.
Daisy: commute an hour to work, I'm there at 6.
Daisy: leave at 3 every day, and then I come home, and this is my little…
Daisy: piece of paradise. My husband and I, we live…
Daisy: on a lake in Essex, Mass, and…
Daisy: I've got 2 big dogs that I have to take care of every day, and…
Daisy: Yeah, the weekdays are pretty… pretty mundane, not gonna lie, but the weekends, I'm usually working in my studio that I have here at my house. I work full-time for this company, but I also do a lot of freelance work outside of my full-time job, and so…
Daisy: yeah, I'm working on a million things at once on the weekends, but…
Daisy: Can't forget to play. I also play a lot, too.
Stephen Skorski: That's… that's amazing! That's… okay, so… so, all of a sudden, like, this conversation takes a total left turn, because I'm so interested in what you just said. What is your background? How did you get… so, I don't know if you know, I'm an architect, and I teach.
Daisy: Oh, wow.
Stephen Skorski: I teach design, at a university, and I love everything that has to do with objects and design and making and construction, so you're, like, feeding me catnip right now when you're telling me what you're doing. How did you get into that?
Daisy: So, in school, I studied fashion design, like the construction and production, sustainable fashion, to be specific, and after I graduated, I got a job at a contemporary art gallery, and there I was doing a ton of, like, installation work, and so…
Daisy: Long story short, my husband got a job in Massachusetts. The first job that I applied for was, this display artist job at Anthropologie.
Daisy: I… I got it, and we moved here, and I guess, also, on the same note, my background… my dad is a carpenter, so I've always been super…
Daisy: into woodworking and that aspect of design, and then the technical part of design, which I learned in design school, which is, like, the fabrication of it all, and…
Daisy: bringing, like, just an… somebody… somebody's idea from concept to ideation to fabrication. That's what I really enjoy doing.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Stephen Skorski: And is that what you're doing in your freelance work as well, or is that sort of,
Stephen Skorski: A different, a different avenue.
Daisy: Yeah, so my freelance work, it's not just window displays. I do a lot of, one-off installations, like, I just, I was just in Rhode Island doing a large-scale drapery installation.
Daisy: for a wedding, and I also just did… a local bakery, they commissioned me to do their holiday windows, so I made, like.
Daisy: life-size gingerbread houses out of cardboard with some cool, like, icing made out of fuzzy ribbon and that sort of thing, so…
Daisy: I guess the… the main premise is I love working with my hands, and, like, that's pretty much the only thing that brings me satisfaction in life, is building things, making things.
Stephen Skorski: So do you have a website or something where people can see your… your work, or how do you… how do you get that out there if it's sort of beyond just the anthropology displays?
Daisy: A lot of it is word of mouth. I take clients just through, like.
Daisy: people recommending me. I had a website, and I went to go look at it. It's a sore… it's a sore subject, honestly, because I worked really hard on this, and I went to go, update it, actually, this week.
Daisy: To share it with the client, and then, lo and behold, it's just, like, completely crashed. There's no more information on it.
Stephen Skorski: Huh.
Daisy: So yeah, I'm… I'm trying to figure that out with tech support at the moment, but yeah, I don't have a website in this… in this moment, but usually I… I do, but not… not today.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, okay. Well, if you get that up and running, or if you want to share that with me, I would share it with others, because actually, I mean, so one of the things, I teach down in North Carolina, and we're very close to High Point.
Stephen Skorski: Which is where they have, twice a year they have something called Furniture Market.
Daisy: Oh, nice.
Stephen Skorski: It's this big global event where, you know, literally people from all over the planet come in, twice a year for, you know, somewhere between a week to 10 days, and the whole, I mean, I say the whole town.
Stephen Skorski: a lot of the town, is just dedicated to furniture manufacturing and sort of everything that goes along with that.
Stephen Skorski: And so, display, of course, is something really important for this event, and so us being so close to that event.
Stephen Skorski: It's not something I work into my studios very often, but other professors typically, you know, will put that into their studio program.
Stephen Skorski: And it's great, I mean, it's just such a fun world to exist in,
Stephen Skorski: So, yeah, I mean, I just think it's amazing, at least for myself.
Stephen Skorski: I have memories as a little kid going into New York and looking at the Macy's windows and the, oh, yeah. Saks Fifth Avenue, and, right? I mean, it's amazing.
Daisy: Sure. That… I mean, I… I find it…
Daisy: like, quite an honor to work for a corporation full-time, being an artist, because a lot of that's kind of gone to the wayside recently. Like, I mean, I… I was just in New York, and a lot of the windows, you know, they're…
Daisy: mass-produced. There's very few companies out there that actually use craftspeople to make their windows now, so… yeah, I feel very lucky to…
Daisy: have the job that I have.
Daisy: But, you know, I… this is just what I do to make money, but I would really rather prefer to just be making my own art.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, yeah.
Daisy: But, you know, it's… sometimes the career takes over your life, and it's… I'm still struggling to find the balance, honestly.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm. Yeah, that's… it's the… I was just… I was talking to…
Stephen Skorski: A friend of mine recently, and he's a musician.
Stephen Skorski: And he's an amazing musician. I mean, he's been playing music since he was 6.
Stephen Skorski: And…
Stephen Skorski: it's kind of the same thing, you know? It's like, how do you… you have this thing in your life that is, you know, it's something that, at least in his words, like, he has to do it, right? There's not really an option. He has to do it, but on the other hand, you can't support, you know, yourself, or, you know, for… at least in the…
Stephen Skorski: In the role he's in right now, you know, that's not possible. So, this balance of, you know, what do you do? And for him, in his sort of mid-20s, he decided to go to law school.
Stephen Skorski: And became a lawyer, but he's still gigging, you know, every weekend. So, it's so interesting, you know, he's, like, almost 60, and it's just, you know, so, like.
Stephen Skorski: pretty much echoing what you just said, like, how do you… how do you find that balance when you… how do you find the balance? What do you… what answers have you come up with, even if you haven't come up with the answer yet?
Daisy: There… I… I have no answers. I literally… I work, basically… I have two full-time jobs right now, freelance and…
Daisy: and full-time, which, I mean, I am extremely grateful, because we've only lived in Massachusetts for 3 years, and it's taken me that long to sort of build a clientele of…
Daisy: repeat people that are coming back to me to keep creating for them, and, you know, they keep me busy, which I'm so thankful for, because I…
Daisy: I don't know, I always dreamed of this life, where, you know, people would pay me and fly me out to all of these different places, and I always dreamed of that as a kid, and now I have that life, and I'm like, well…
Daisy: you know, I guess I just… I need to seize the moment more often. Like, I got back into my studio this…
Daisy: this past weekend, after the holidays, it was just, like, a complete disaster, because I make all my own wrapping papers, and it was just, like, a… it was a complete disaster. And I went in there, and I, like, deep cleaned, and once my space was, like, fully refreshed and felt…
Daisy: like a blank page, I was able to pick up a project that I had
Daisy: put down for about a year, and finally start… start working on some of my own stuff again. But yeah, it's… that's one thing that has been a struggle for me, is…
Daisy: finding… finding the work-life balance. But not only work-life, but work-life and art balance, you know?
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, I mean…
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, I mean, that's it. I mean, how do you… I don't know, I guess in some ways, I've given up on the idea of balance.
Daisy: Yeah, there's… there's no balance.
Stephen Skorski: Right, you know.
Stephen Skorski: It… for me, at least, it feels like the more… The more my professional life
Stephen Skorski: Is overtaken by my artistic…
Stephen Skorski: impulses, the happier I am. And so that… I do find that… the struggle for me is there. It's in that kind of, you know, how far can I push it in the direction I want it to go before
Stephen Skorski: there's resistance, you know? And then you're like, okay, I gotta go to another faculty meeting, or, you know, something like that, you know? But tell me, tell me about, tell me about your studio. I'm fascinated by…
Stephen Skorski: artist's studio. So maybe, if you wouldn't mind, you know, describe your studio, what do we see in it, you know, how's it set up, and maybe in the context of explaining that, tell us about your art and what you make when you can do whatever you want to do.
Daisy: I'm like, well, if I'm gonna describe it, I might as well go in there and look at it.
Stephen Skorski: Nice, I love it. I… no, seriously, I'm… I'm… obsessed is not the right word, but,
Stephen Skorski: I have found that in the US, a lot of artist studios are not,
Stephen Skorski: they're maybe not the way I would set them up, in terms of they… they seem very,
Stephen Skorski: Insulated, kind of… set up for one person, where I spent a lot of time in Korea.
Daisy: Yeah. And…
Stephen Skorski: it seems like the… there's a complete flipped philosophy, where the studio is, yes, it's meant for work, but it's really meant to be a social place as well, and I love that so much. So whenever I go anywhere, if somebody mentions they have a studio, I'll either ask them about it or ask to see it. So this is a… this is a pleasure for me to…
Stephen Skorski: Get a little insight into you through your studio space.
Daisy: Yeah, so I am very, very lucky in the fact that we have enough space in the house we're in right now that I've got my own studio, and then right across the hallway is my husband's studio, so we both can be, like, parallel playing, I guess. But, my… my…
Daisy: my artistic practice involves textiles, and basically, I've got an entire wall full of handmade quilts, and linens, and all sorts of, like, fabrics that I've purchased over time, just because I liked the way they felt, or the way they looked, or, like.
Daisy: I mean, that's one collection that…
Daisy: Brandon mentioned my tiny things collection, because he stays in my guest bedroom, and that's where I keep all of my tiny things. But they… I rarely let people into my studio. It's kind of like my sacred space. Like, I'm very secretive about
Daisy: my projects, one, because I fear perception, and two, I just…
Daisy: I… I never feel like they're complete, so a lot of my friends have probably never even seen my studio space.
Stephen Skorski: Wow.
Daisy: But I have, like, 100 quilts behind me.
Daisy: I just… I've… I've collected quilts, I… I collect cutter quilts, specifically, because,
Daisy: You know, there's something so sad about, like, a handmade item that took
Daisy: Probably, like, most likely, a woman
Daisy: hundreds of hours to make, and it just sits in a… in a hope chest, never to see the light of day again, so I originally started making
Daisy: Like, quilt jackets and unique wearable art pieces out of these quilts that had, like, holes and stains and things on them that a lot of people probably would have
Daisy: discarded.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Daisy: So that's behind me, but, and I've got my, like, sewing machine set up on one side, I've got my iron, and probably…
Daisy: hundreds of different types of threads, and on one wall is, it's probably, like, a 12x6 painting that I acquired through working at the art gallery. I… I hosted my own,
Daisy: contemporary art show. Like, I got to curate the entire thing, and one of the artists gave a piece of art, and the show was up for a month, and she ended up moving away. And I was like, hey, you, like, how are we gonna get this massive piece of art back to you?
Daisy: And she was like, oh, I'll just get it from you the next time I'm in Bloomington. And I was like, well, I'm actually moving to Massachusetts in a month, so… what are we gonna do about this? And I ended up just buying it from her. And it's… it's a really cool scene of, like, the shadows in a forest.
Daisy: like, yellows and blues and greens. It's… it's really cool, but it's the backdrop of my entire studio right now.
Stephen Skorski: That's fantastic! I mean…
Stephen Skorski: Is this, do you get to spend time there and drink coffee or tea and think about things, or is this a place that you…
Stephen Skorski: You know, it's just all straight-up work. You get in there, and you just start producing.
Daisy: Oh no, there's a lot of daydreaming that happens in here.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, that's… tell,
Stephen Skorski: And it's so funny, because, boy, talk about going into areas that I didn't expect, but I'm super excited about. Cutter quilts. I don't know what the word cutter means.
Daisy: Oh, b- it just means,
Daisy: There… you can cut them, because usually you wouldn't want to cut
Daisy: A quilt, especially if it's beautiful, and…
Daisy: In fact, I used to cut up beautiful quilts, and then a bunch of people came for me. Like, literally came. I almost got canceled, because they were like.
Daisy: how could you do that? Like, you're literally… evil. But…
Daisy: That was the vibe that I got from the internet, at least. So I ended up, like, following a rule of, like, okay, I won't cut up this quilt if… or I can cut up this quilt if it has stains, and I feel like it would be discarded by anybody else but me, you know?
Stephen Skorski: Yeah. Just…
Daisy: Cut around the holes, and stains, and…
Daisy: try to work with what I got. I think the whole, like.
Daisy: premise that I try to follow is turning the ordinary into extraordinary. Like, that's the… that's the, like, motto that I try to follow, because
Daisy: You know, you see quilts…
Daisy: all the time, at houses, just laying on a couch. Oftentimes they're just, like, a sort of discarded object, yet still, like, a statement piece in a home. But I'm like, well, what if you can…
Daisy: actually wear the comfort and nostalgia of a quilt on your body. That's kind of why I started making quilt clothes.
Daisy: But I haven't made a quilt coat in a second, that's just… That's just…
Daisy: I've got a lot of materials to make a lot of coats, but I haven't got to it yet.
Stephen Skorski: That's fantastic. I would lo- again, you know, when you do get the website up and running, I would love to see
Stephen Skorski: some of those.
Daisy: You can… if you have Instagram, my, my business name is Rebloomed Design, and you can see a little bit of everything I do on there. I used to specialize specifically in fashion design, but
Daisy: as I've… like, changed, and grown, and my practice is changing. I…
Daisy: I've veered a little bit away from fashion design, and just more towards… Like, installation, sort of…
Daisy: I… more like installation art.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, no, that makes sense. So, re-bloomed, like R-E-B-L-O-O-M-E-D?
Daisy: Yep.
Stephen Skorski: Cool, so that's your Instagram handle.
Daisy: Yeah, rebloom design.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, Rebloom Design, so a couple of D's there, right next to each other?
Daisy: Yep.
Stephen Skorski: Awesome. So, before, before we switch gears a little bit.
Stephen Skorski: You talked about the people who made those quilts that are now, sort of.
Stephen Skorski: Sitting in chests, and they're slowly disintegrating.
Stephen Skorski: Tell me more about what you think about those people.
Daisy: I mean, I… I think…
Daisy: I think a lot of our everyday objects, you know, especially the handmade objects, are made by women, and I always was fascinated by, like.
Stephen Skorski: the…
Daisy: sort of…
Daisy: most of the time, invisible work that women do on a day-to-day basis. So that's why I was, like, really, really interested in quilts. Also, my grandma was a quilter. I was passed down all of the quilts that she made. She made me and all of my siblings quilts. I still have all of them.
Daisy: And not only, like, the work that women do can be sort of…
Daisy: shown through this… this one object, but some quilts, and I have a collection of a few of them, actually show historical, like, things that have happened. I have a quilt right now that has over 300 signatures on it.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Daisy: And… it's just…
Daisy: I don't know, you touch it, and you just feel, like, this sense of history and importance and nostalgia, and yet…
Daisy: someone was giving it away for $10. It's like that sort of lost history that…
Daisy: would be forgotten, and yet I feel some sort of, like…
Daisy: I don't know, some sort of…
Daisy: calling to keep this little piece of history, like, relevant, you know what I mean?
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, oh my god, absolutely. I mean, absolutely. I mean, when… I mean, I… I really, I like your… your phrase, turning the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Stephen Skorski: But I will say, like, what you're describing right now, I think, even goes beyond that, right? I mean, keeping something alive
Stephen Skorski: that somebody spent…
Stephen Skorski: so much energy and effort and emotion. Maybe not always emot… but, you know, maybe, you know, maybe sometimes it was robotic in the way that they did it, but I suspect a lot of times, especially if it's… it's a quilt, that has, you know, all these signatures on it, that there, you know, there was emotional investment, and the fact that you were taking that and
Stephen Skorski: giving it a new life, and then not only giving it a new life, but then being able to explain to other people what it is and why it's important, and… you know, I mean, I suspect people would be really, or are, really inspired when they see these things and they hear these stories. That's…
Stephen Skorski: Amazing.
Daisy: Yeah, I think they're pretty cool. I actually… I… I just… I looked up and I saw a quilt that, has a bunch of signatures on it.
Daisy: Just to name a few of the nicknames, this quilt is from my, summer camp?
Daisy: And… it has all of the nicknames of the people who were in the summer camp.
Daisy: Just to name a few.
Daisy: Let's see.
Daisy: A black bird.
Daisy: bootlegger.
Daisy: Big Brother, Little Mama, Bulldog.
Daisy: Cricket!
Daisy: Moondog, Bellboy.
Daisy: What are some other…
Stephen Skorski: And are these all, like, 12-year-olds? Like, what are we talking here? What age are these campers?
Daisy: I wish I knew more.
Stephen Skorski: So, so this is, this is, this is a quilt that you found…
Stephen Skorski: It's not… no relation to you, other than that you found it, and it's from a camp.
Daisy: Yeah. No, it's… it's super cool, I just love the… the nicknames.
Stephen Skorski: Law.
Daisy: Yeah. Stump jumper.
Stephen Skorski: Jumper.
Stephen Skorski: I bet that dude was awesome. I want a cool nickname! Nicknames are fantastic. They…
Stephen Skorski: Well, because they… there's a sense of belonging when you get a good nickname.
Daisy: Right. It's like a rite of passage.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, like Stump Jumper. I think that's a… that… I'm whoever… girl or guy, whoever got that nickname, probably that night went to bed feeling a little better about themselves.
Daisy: For sure.
Stephen Skorski: That is very, very cool. Okay, see, okay, so,
Stephen Skorski: you would say you have a quilt collection. Is that… is that fair?
Daisy: Yes, for sure. Definitely have a quilt collection.
Stephen Skorski: Okay. So, the reason I ask you that is, you, you know, we…
Stephen Skorski: Maybe I mentioned this earlier, but for those who are listening, you and I have had, like, zero contact, right? Except for a few brief text exchanges. And in one of those brief exchanges, you made the comment, I love tiny things, and they make me happy.
Stephen Skorski: Right.
Daisy: Yes.
Stephen Skorski: really simple… phrase, and, you know, I was like, oh, that's so… that's… that's so interesting.
Stephen Skorski: But it did make me think that maybe you might not see yourself as a collector?
Stephen Skorski: In the traditional sense. But then when I hear you talk about the quilts, maybe I hear something a little different. So, really, the question is, when you hear the word collector, what pops into your brain?
Daisy: In terms of the tiny things, when I think of collector, I think of this video that I saw, which was…
Daisy: Someone had collected tiny things their entire life, or it was, like, their grandmother who collected tiny things, and their entire house was filled with those type
Daisy: set drawers? Do you know what I'm talking about?
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, sure, of course.
Daisy: Pipewriter letters.
Daisy: or, you know what I mean, the press letters. Yeah. And, their walls were covered in… in those drawers, and each little tiny…
Daisy: like, pocket had something in it, and that… that… I was like, I guess… I guess I'm a collector, but I'm not…
Daisy: I'm not really in the game of tiny things, like…
Stephen Skorski: You mean in comparison to what you were seeing in this video?
Daisy: Yes, yes. I'm not, like…
Daisy: Or, yeah, so I think when I think of collector, I think of somebody who has
Daisy: hundreds and thousands of something, which I guess I do have hundreds of tiny things, but for me, it's… it's a practical collection, because, you know, they don't take up much room, and I can take them with me wherever I travel to. Wherever I end up, I'll be able to…
Daisy: Pack a bag with my tiny things, because they… they really don't take up much room at all.
Stephen Skorski: So, if I could wave a magic wand…
Stephen Skorski: And make all your tiny things full-scale, and you knew you'd have room for them, and we could move them easily, would you rather have that?
Daisy: That sounds like anxiety to me.
Stephen Skorski: Really?
Stephen Skorski: I don't think that I would want these things if they were full-sized. I…
Daisy: I always say, I won
Daisy: I want things in the extreme. I am obsessed with tiny things, but I am also very obsessed with large-scale things. I was like, if it's normal-sized, I don't want it. I either want it very large or very small. No in-between.
Stephen Skorski: No, that's…
Stephen Skorski: See, that's the… that's the creative in you, right? I mean, the… you don't want to walk that normal path, right? I mean, it's so… it's so fun to hit those… those edges of extreme,
Stephen Skorski: I love it. What, okay, so you're collecting these little things.
Stephen Skorski: And there is, you know, like you said, an element of practicality to it, but…
Stephen Skorski: Beyond that, right, beyond just the…
Stephen Skorski: okay, you know, I can move these things easily, they don't take up a lot of space. I don't know, I mean, how do you think of them as… in terms of an object? I mean, do you think of them as decorations? Do you think of them as toys? Do you think of them as something entirely different? Like, what comes to mind when you just kind of generally think about these little things?
Daisy: well, the majority… er, not the majority, I've collected a lot over the years, but… I…
Daisy: I like them because each one holds a specific memory or moment for me. Like, I have a handful of tiny things that I've had since I was
Daisy: a wee baby. Like, I have this one small… it's a pink, fuzzy, plush monkey, maybe, like, an inch and a half…
Daisy: like, big. And, I remember as a kid, playing with Bratz dolls, and it's like a Bratz…
Daisy: little monkey, and I just… I remember that's my whole childhood, and I… I have a hard time remembering
Daisy: moments of my childhood, but I do remember the feeling of my childhood, especially when I, like.
Daisy: recall and look at those tiny things that I thought were important enough to literally
Daisy: carry through my entire life, I mean, up into adulthood. I never thought, like, oh, I want to get rid of this. And I always think, like, you know, now I definitely can't get rid of it. I've held onto this for almost 30 years, like, it's literally been with me since I was a baby, like, I can't get rid of it.
Stephen Skorski: No, you can't. But would you want to?
Daisy: No, I don't want to.
Stephen Skorski: Okay. It's like…
Daisy: It's a part of my psyche.
Stephen Skorski: Man. Okay, that, okay,
Stephen Skorski: So you have this plush little monkey.
Stephen Skorski: Describe… it's pink, is that what you said?
Daisy: Yes.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, can you describe it a little bit more, just so… you know, how big are we talking? Is it an inch tall? Is it half an inch? Is it 3 inches? Is it…
Stephen Skorski: It's probably, like, an inch and a half tall. I have really…
Daisy: Sorry, I went through my beaded curtain. It's about a half an inch tall, or no, not a half an inch, maybe 2 inches tall. It has really, like, fuzzy arms and legs. It's got long, dangly arms. I think it's just, like, the goofiest-looking thing ever.
Daisy: But…
Stephen Skorski: Okay, that's all… and so… so you, so in your mind, this is the first one you, you ever acquired?
Daisy: Actually, not the… it's not the first tiny thing I acquired. I had a set of, which I still do, a set of, like, velvet Winnie the Pooh miniatures. So I guess you would consider them toys?
Stephen Skorski: But now they're collector's items, so… Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Do you like… do you like that… that… that phrase, collector, collector's items?
Daisy: No, I mean, I would never sell them, but…
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Daisy: you know, I guess…
Daisy: I… I don't mind calling them toys, but… yeah, I think those are the first tiny thing that I ever had. I also had, it was, like, a chain. It was, like, a plastic chain, and each, like, loop had a tiny thing on it.
Daisy: I… Do you know what I'm talking about?
Stephen Skorski: Like a charm bracelet?
Daisy: It was, like, necklace size, though, but… and I still have it, but yeah, I remember that being, like, my prized possession as a kid. Like, I loved this necklace, it had a million tiny things charms on it, and I still have it to this day.
Stephen Skorski: you are good at holding onto things. That's fantastic.
Daisy: mom, it's not me, it's totally my mom. She'll pop things out, like, 15 years later and be like, do you remember this?
Stephen Skorski: That's really sweet, actually.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, that's nice because… well, I guess when you're, like, 15 or 16, you think, I don't care about that.
Stephen Skorski: Right? And then, when you're 30, you go, oh my god, I would love that, and all of a sudden, your mom breaks that thing out. That's…
Daisy: Oh, yeah.
Stephen Skorski: That's pretty fantastic. So, when you were younger and you were getting these things, you know, did you…
Stephen Skorski: Even as a little kid, did you know you were sort of drawn to these things in different ways from your other toys, or did they, at the time, they just sort of blended in with all the other full-size stuff?
Daisy: To be honest, I can't even recall a full-size toy that I had.
Stephen Skorski: Really?
Daisy: like, a full-size, like, baby doll, but I loved…
Daisy: Yeah, even… even when I was a little girl, I had,
Daisy: a shelf with all of my tiny things on them. And now I've upgraded. I actually got one of those typeset kits, and I fill it up, and I need to get a new one, because it's completely full.
Stephen Skorski: What is that that you got? A what?
Daisy: Oh, the typeset drawer. Sorry, I said kit.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, got it, got it, got it, okay. So now you… so is… so, okay, this brings me into… I mean…
Stephen Skorski: I do want to hear more about the emotional connection, but how do you have these displayed? Maybe that'll help me kind of anchor these things in my head. You said… you said Brandon comes over, he and his wife, they stay in your guest room, and they are surrounded by your miniatures, and how… how are they surrounded by them? Are they on the walls? Are they in the
Stephen Skorski: Cabinets, what's going.
Daisy: Yeah, they're… they're on the wall, so I've taken one of those drawers, and I've just nailed it to the wall, and I have,
Daisy: I… I organize them by collection. So, like, do you know what micro-machines are?
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, sure.
Daisy: So, I have the ultra-miniature micro-machines that I've had since, again, childhood. To preface, my mom owned a daycare, so I had a lot of toys, like.
Daisy: to choose from, and for some reason, I was always drawn to the tiny ones. I even said, like.
Daisy: if we… she closed down her daycare, 2 years ago, and I was, like, begging her, like, please, please, please, do not forget to send me the micro machine.
Stephen Skorski: that's sweet, and you got them all.
Daisy: No, I had to… I had to divvy them up with my older sister, who…
Stephen Skorski: Really? Why not? There was a family fight for the Micro Machines.
Daisy: In fact, I'm scared for this podcast to come out, and I might even keep it from my sister, because,
Daisy: There, like, she… yeah, she was getting really upset about the micro machine.
Stephen Skorski: Oh my god.
Daisy: I don't know why. They're just… they're just, like, memories in my childhood. I remember playing with them. My mom, she did this thing where,
Daisy: She worked really, really hard. And at the end of the day, she'd be like, okay, kids, do you want to use my back as a racetrack?
Stephen Skorski: Oh, that's…
Daisy: Me and my siblings would, yeah, play race cars on her back, just so she could get a little lay-down time and a back massage at the same time.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, that is… That's gold. That is absolutely gold.
Stephen Skorski: So, Sybil, okay, so you're you and your sister, was there anyone else fighting for these micro-machines, or was this the primary battle?
Daisy: Yeah, I'm actually… I'm the last of… Total of 6 kids.
Stephen Skorski: Wow. So…
Daisy: There were always battles, and…
Daisy: But since I'm the youngest, I sort of… I got the last call for everything, you know, so… .
Stephen Skorski: And so you drew the line at Micro Machines, you're like, I'm getting these.
Stephen Skorski: You're like, the boat, you can have it, you know? Like, I don't care, I just want the micro-machine.
Stephen Skorski: Exactly.
Daisy: And the miniature trolls, as well.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, yeah. We, like… so you got the trolls, very nice.
Daisy: Yeah, my mom gave those to me for my birthday a few years ago.
Daisy: And she was like, you could sell these online for a pretty penny, and I was like.
Daisy: Don't even, I would never sell these.
Stephen Skorski: That, you know, what's so nice is, you, you know, the… How do I say this?
Stephen Skorski: you have a lot… you clearly are a collector. I mean, just… at least through my eyes, you know, this idea of, like, I will… you know, you don't care about the value, you know, the idea of selling them is offensive.
Stephen Skorski: You know, you'll sort of have a little bit of an irrational battle to have, you know, some of these things. I love every bit of that. So it's pretty clear, like, when you talk about these things, they do make you happy, and it's something you mentioned right off the bat.
Stephen Skorski: So, is there a flavor of happiness? You know, is it a calmness? Is it nostalgia? Is it comfort? You know.
Stephen Skorski: What do you… what are you, what are you feeling when you're…
Stephen Skorski: Feeling that. What particular brand of happiness is it?
Daisy: I mean, definitely nostalgia.
Daisy: I mean, obviously, there's just so many memories from my childhood that each one sort of brings to light. Not even from my childhood, but even into…
Daisy: my adulthood, like, my husband knows how much I love tiny things, and he's gifted me, like, a miniature book of… it was, like, a leather-bound
Daisy: Tiny, tiny book, maybe, like, an inch tall, of photos from us, like, from… from our past, together.
Stephen Skorski: Oh my god, that's so sweet.
Daisy: You know, I have… it's not just… it's not all about my childhood, and it is even present day, like, he… he gifted me a tiny, it's maybe a half inch, it's like a little tiny gold knife that's actually
Daisy: really sharp. Like, definitely not a child's toy.
Daisy: And, you know, anytime we're going to a new place, like, anytime we visit somewhere, I never really go for the traditional souvenir. I'm always searching for something small that I can just bring back and put it in my pocket, and…
Daisy: Take home with me to remember that, like, specific place But,
Daisy: Yeah, so the specific brand of happiness, I guess, would be nostalgia, but also just, it makes me…
Daisy: feel loved, which makes me happy, you know?
Daisy: Yeah, no, I mean, God, absolutely, that's…
Stephen Skorski: I mean, there's no better feeling than that, and if it comes in a… something you can put in your pocket, even better, right?
Daisy: Exactly.
Stephen Skorski: I…
Daisy: Actually, I'm not a fan of GIFs at all, or.
Stephen Skorski: Really?
Daisy: Like, I… Unless they're tiny things, like…
Daisy: Because just objects that take up unnecessary space, especially, like, non-useful objects, I'm just… I'm overwhelmed by things every day, so I try to keep my…
Daisy: regular-sized objects, very practical and simple and, you know… I mean, I'm an artist and creative, so everything is kind of quirky, but, you know.
Daisy: But with the tiny things, it's like, okay, I don't feel bad for having this little turtle figurine, like, what's the harm?
Stephen Skorski: What's the harm? Famous last words right there.
Daisy: It doesn't take… and also, I think of things a lot, like, analytically, so each square foot of my house is worth a certain amount of money, and I don't know if I could sacrifice, you know.
Daisy: $400 worth of square footage space on something that's not practical.
Stephen Skorski: For a full-size turtle.
Daisy: Yes. Right.
Stephen Skorski: So, so as you're describing this.
Stephen Skorski: I, you know, in… help… give me a little window into your brain. Is there a mini-world in your head?
Stephen Skorski: And a full-size… you know, when you think about your existence and your physical space that you occupy, are these two things really…
Stephen Skorski: Separate or, you know, a genuine, like, subset of one or the other exists in one or the other?
Daisy: That's very meta.
Daisy: No, I mean…
Daisy: I'm not sure, actually. I'm not sure how to answer that question. I think that I… you know, currently they're just objects on a shelf in my wall. I don't necessarily think of them having their own, like.
Daisy: little world, I would say. But,
Daisy: you know, they do exist in my world, and they bring me little glimmers of happiness every time I walk by, or sometimes I'll just take a moment to stand in front of the shelf, and I'll pick something up, and I'll just, like.
Daisy: Feel it, and… and think about it, and where I got it, or… you know.
Daisy: I don't know.
Stephen Skorski: It's like a… is it a touchstone? Is that… is that what we would call… is that…
Stephen Skorski: Okay. A touchstone.
Daisy: For sure.
Stephen Skorski: Wow. And, and each one… not, maybe not each one, but many of them.
Stephen Skorski: Have that ability to take you back to a place, or bring up a memory.
Daisy: Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's definitely, like, Like, time traveling.
Stephen Skorski: Can you…
Stephen Skorski: You know, is there… is there one that you might share? You know, you've mentioned a couple, and maybe those are the ones that you… you know, but can you tell us about another one, or is there one maybe you haven't talked about that does it more than the others?
Daisy: I guess…
Daisy: I… there's not, like, one specific one, but there is a story that I wanted to tell you about… I love sharing tiny things as well. I think they bring me so much happiness, and, you know, so I figured they must bring other people happiness.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, of course.
Daisy: And… and I've…
Daisy: I am… I'm right. They definitely bring happiness. If you're ever at Blick, they have, like, a tiny thing section.
Stephen Skorski: That you… Really? Okay, I didn't know that.
Daisy: Yeah, and so on my last… on my last trip, I was in New York, and, you know, we work really, really long days, sometimes 10 to 14-hour days, and 10 days in a row, so it was on our last day, everybody sort of
Daisy: quickly wrapping up their projects, and when I was at Blick, I had bought a package of tiny hands that you put on your finger.
Daisy: it… not on your finger, you're supposed to put them on a pencil, or wherever you want, but anyways, I was going around to people as they're cleaning up, and being like, hey, do you need a hand?
Daisy: And then holding out the little tiny hand.
Stephen Skorski: And, you know, after such a long day, and…
Daisy: actually, just such a long week, that little, tiny thing really made all the difference in everybody's lives, you know? Like, it brought so much joy, and it was a funny little prank as well.
Stephen Skorski: Aww.
Daisy: But… And then, another time recently where I gifted a tiny thing was I found these little tiny…
Daisy: how many times am I gonna say the word tiny? I found…
Stephen Skorski: It's unavoidable in this conversation, so no worries there.
Daisy: I found this very small, cute cherub, and it was like a package of 10 of them, or something, and I would walk up to somebody, and I'd be like, hey, this was on your shoulder, and then bring it out, and it's this tiny, cute little cherub.
Daisy: And there was this one woman that I was working with, and she was like, you know, it's crazy that you just did that to me, because my mother passed away.
Stephen Skorski: some years ago, and she said, anytime I see a cherub, it's a sign of her. And I was like…
Daisy: wow, that's synchronicity right there, like, I would have never known that, and that's very deep and personal, yet…
Daisy: I don't know. So, I have one of those cherubs.
Daisy: Because it came in a pack of 12. And, yeah, every time I think of that, I… or every time I see it, I think of that moment of, like, being able to share that with her, and…
Daisy: You know, who knows if people…
Daisy: cherish these things as much as I do, but even if it just brings, like, a little bit of… little bit of joy in their life, that's… that's all that matters to me.
Stephen Skorski: Oh my god, are you kidding me? I mean, getting a little bit of joy from, you know, a stranger? That's like, you know, amazing. Or an acquaintance. I mean, yeah, that's amazing. I love the idea of sharing a collection. I mean, that's really… because a lot of times, let's face it, I mean, I know with my own collections.
Stephen Skorski: I feel like I'm a fairly generous person, but the idea of giving something away from any of my collections…
Stephen Skorski: physically hurts me, like, just the thought of it, you know? Like, there's no way. So the idea that you are able to do that.
Stephen Skorski: and see the kind of immediate response that you, you know, you get. That's… that's really… that's great. I mean, that's really… I think that's the way, in an ideal world, collection should be. You know, that they… they… they're not, like, this selfish pursuit.
Stephen Skorski: But they connect us to those around us.
Daisy: For sure. Oh, I was actually a part of this.
Stephen Skorski: this pen pal program, I guess you could say, called Tiny Things Mail, and… Really?
Daisy: It was like, you get a tiny thing, and then you send a tiny thing to the next address, and so…
Daisy: you know, I only ever got one thing in the mail, but I just thought that that was, like, such a cool idea to be able to share with some… actually, no, I got… I got two things in the mail. I got a little tiny owl, and then somebody sent me…
Daisy: a very, very, very miniature fork. And, yeah, just to be able to share tiny things, and I…
Daisy: I know that there's a huge community of people that are just as…
Daisy: enthralled with tiny things as I am.
Stephen Skorski: It sounds like…
Stephen Skorski: I mean, this is… this… when I say it sounds like, I'm hearing your words, and I'm also thinking of my own reaction. When you say something like, I received a tiny fork, what I like about this is it's so layered with
Stephen Skorski: Like, there's a layer of humor there.
Stephen Skorski: there's a layer of just receiving a gift, which of course always feels good. There's a layer of surprise because of the way it came to you.
Stephen Skorski: then there's just the fact that you like tiny things. You know, there's a lot of layers of enjoyment in this, it seems.
Daisy: Oh, definitely.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm. So, you've mentioned a few times…
Stephen Skorski: You know, you kind of referenced back to when you were younger, and you kind of had these things.
Stephen Skorski: From the start, is there…
Stephen Skorski: Do you think when you get these things, you kind of,
Stephen Skorski: are reminded of what it's like to be a kid? Or when you were… you know what I mean? Like, is there an element of that? Because I think most of us have lost that. Have you found a little secret to…
Stephen Skorski: Reconnect yourself with the sort of wonders of childhood on a more regular basis than the rest of us?
Daisy: I… I would say so, yes, actually. I find it…
Daisy: you know, I feel like we're all craving that sense of… childhood, like…
Daisy: Freedom, and play, and, you know, and as you grow older, it's like…
Daisy: there's so much less play happening around you. I mean…
Daisy: Like, at work, you know, everybody's so focused on really real life
Daisy: Like, deep and hard things constantly.
Daisy: And if you can just have, like, One second of… Of a break from being… Stuck in this…
Daisy: Real adult world, you know?
Daisy: That's… I guess that's what tiny things do for me. They give me a break from the harshness of reality.
Stephen Skorski: That's a… that's… that's amazing, really. I mean, what a gift.
Stephen Skorski: You know, I think most people would…
Stephen Skorski: feel really fortunate if they had something in their life, especially… now, I know that some of these things can be really expensive, but then other ones are… can be really, really cheap.
Stephen Skorski: Is there any…
Stephen Skorski: Does that play into it at all for you? Do you care? Does it matter? Are there things that you would like to have that you feel like that would be wasteful, or, you know, because of the cost, or it's just not even, you know, something that comes up in your calculus?
Daisy: You know… That… that is a good question. I… I couldn't even tell you
Daisy: an amount of money that I've spent on tiny things.
Daisy: Usually they're tiny, so they're not that expensive.
Daisy: there's… you know, but I guess you're right, some of them are expensive, and I don't know if I would pay…
Daisy: you know.
Daisy: more than a couple dollars for a really cool tiny thing? Maybe I would, depending on the thing. I'm at max capacity right now, so I've sort of cut myself off from buying tiny things, but…
Stephen Skorski: Really?
Daisy: I mean…
Stephen Skorski: How can that be? They're so small!
Daisy: I know! My max capacity is I've filled up every single shelf on my… on my type…
Daisy: kit. I… I really hope that's what they're called. Is it called a type kit drawer?
Stephen Skorski: You know, I don't… I don't know a typeset, something…
Daisy: Oh, typeset. That could… that could probably be it.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, maybe. But either way, we know, we know what you're talking about.
Daisy: Either way, I mean, there is a little bit more room on here. I actually just… I took some off, and…
Daisy: Gave them away. So…
Stephen Skorski: Really?
Daisy: I have 5 open slots, so…
Daisy: Who knows what will fill them?
Stephen Skorski: So the ones you gave away… I really am fascinated by this idea of giving away parts of collections.
Stephen Skorski: I'm assuming the ones you gave away did not hold particularly strong memories, is that fair, or…
Daisy: They did not. Yeah, they were something that I ordered late at night, offline. They didn't really hold any, like.
Daisy: important memory or significance to me, so I was like, you know what, if I bought them online before, I could buy them online again, so…
Daisy: which I'm not going to, cause they get…
Daisy: They're, like, tiny, er… of course they're tiny, but they're squishy, and they collect dust really easily, so I was like, mmm… I'm gonna give those a good…
Daisy: a good clean, and put some, baby powder on them, and give them to my niece. So, that's what I did.
Daisy: She also likes small things.
Stephen Skorski: How old is your niece.
Daisy: She's 11.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, that's sweet.
Stephen Skorski: So that… well, again, it goes… it goes… collections are really fun when you can share them. Not just, giving something, but talking about it, and, I don't know, that… that almost like…
Stephen Skorski: you're, I don't know, feeding on the energy of somebody else, you know, in, like, the best way possible, and then they get that back from you, and so that's cool, so you and your niece talk about tiny things?
Daisy: Yes, she is obsessed with my collection. She lives in California, so we see each other maybe once every few years, but when I do see her, I like to give her something.
Daisy: Something small. Great. Thank you.
Stephen Skorski: How much of the… because now that that's kind of twice that you've met… two, or actually three times, maybe, you've sort of mentioned that… how these tiny things help you connect to other people. Is that something that just sort of happens, or do you think that it's something you consciously have considered over the years?
Daisy: I just… I feel like…
Daisy: recently, I started consciously considering it. Like, recently I've gone out of my way to purchase tiny things in order to give them to other people. But before, I just… if I see something that reminds me of someone, I'll just give it to them. I'm not very…
Daisy: I'm sentimental towards some things, but I'm not very sentimental towards most things, so I'm happy to…
Daisy: give it to somebody, like, for instance, I'm the type of person where if you come into my house, don't say you like anything, because you will leave with it.
Stephen Skorski: Wow.
Daisy: So, if, you know, if my
Daisy: if anybody likes anything in my house, I'm like, take it, you know? It's yours. And then, you know, it gets awkward, and they're like, I can't, I can't take that, but…
Stephen Skorski: I… Excuse me.
Daisy: That's just… I remember that's how my grandma used to be. I used to go to her house. Anything that I liked, she would end up giving it to me.
Daisy: Even, like, I said I liked the jacket she was wearing, she would take it off and be like, here, it's yours, like… so, I don't know, I like to remember her in that way.
Daisy: If you like it, it's yours. I don't need anything.
Stephen Skorski: Carmos are the best, aren't they?
Daisy: the best.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, that's, what a great… what a great feeling. But isn't that amazing, right? That, I mean, you have this… you have this way of approaching life because of something that your grandmother did,
Stephen Skorski: And that… that connection, I suspect, just feels… I mean, anytime you can connect with somebody who's important in your life like that, that's, again, just amazing.
Stephen Skorski: So…
Stephen Skorski: I wanted to ask you this question, like, a couple of minutes ago, and we got onto something else, and it has to do with your state of mind when thinking about tiny things. So this might be a silly question, but it is serious, I think.
Stephen Skorski: if you saw… so you're an artist, a designer, you know, you've been in galleries, and I'm not quite sure what your relationship to furniture is, but I personally love chairs, right? So, you could, you know, if chairs are not a thing that you're really into, you can, you know, substitute whatever the thing is for you, but…
Stephen Skorski: If you were to see, a full-size
Stephen Skorski: say, Eames chair that you really loved.
Stephen Skorski: would you think, I want that full-size chair, or would you say, no, I don't, I want the mini version?
Stephen Skorski: Or is the mini version a… you know what I'm saying? Like…
Daisy: Oh, definitely.
Stephen Skorski: what… which one do you… which one do you want? And is it really that kind of an equivalent?
Daisy: My… one of my favorite things… like I said, I don't like regular-sized objects. I like really, really large or really, really small. And one of my favorite things that I've seen recently, or not even recently, like,
Daisy: in design school, I had a bunch of friends who were in the architecture department, and they got to make prototypes, and, like, 3D printed prototypes, miniature prototypes of chairs, and whatever it is they were making. I am obsessed. But I'm like.
Daisy: I'm… I'm pulling back, because I'm like, do I…
Daisy: Do I really need a whole, sort of, gallery wall of different types of chairs?
Daisy: no, but that might… I mean, the house that we're moving to is a blank canvas, so I might put these little tchotchke, miniature things away for a little while, and I might start a new collection of just really cool, like.
Daisy: Do you know who Mies van der Rohe is?
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, of course.
Daisy: I love his chairs, and I also love, like, conversation chairs. It's not something that I would personally have in my own house, but just having a replicated, small version of that? Yeah, you bet. I would…
Daisy: I would love that.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, that's, that's, that's fascinating. Any particular… yeah, chairs are…
Stephen Skorski: I have a problem with chairs.
Stephen Skorski: Personally.
Daisy: whole house just, like, chairs on chairs, stacked on chairs, because…
Stephen Skorski: My storage unit, let's just say that it's to that point where, you know, I have to… I have to offload chairs, so my sister's office has 3 chairs in it, because I don't have space for them.
Daisy: It's like an art installation of chairs, I would love that.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah. No, it really is, because, you know, you go to these antique places, or you're at an auction, and you see one that you've wanted forever, and it's, it's a… you know, and it's the right place, right time, because, you know, those shares are…
Stephen Skorski: expensive. Yes. And if you ever do run into one, and the price is good, you might get it, because you might not see that
Stephen Skorski: For another 20 years, again, at an affordable…
Stephen Skorski: price. And so, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get them…
Daisy: 10.
Daisy: I have, I also love chairs. We can definitely… We can bond over this.
Stephen Skorski: I love it!
Daisy: I love chairs. I recently, I volunteered for a while at this antique shop in Essex.
Daisy: And he had, like, 5 or 6 big storage containers outside, and one of them is just all chairs. Like, we… for our wedding, we just borrowed a bunch of stuff from the antique place, so a lot of antique chairs, but I found
Daisy: a gold mine of chairs. It's like this mid-century modern, perfectly preserved, burnt orange with, you know, metal…
Daisy: Arms…
Stephen Skorski: Oh, you're killing me.
Daisy: Oh my gosh, and I got a set of, 6 of them.
Stephen Skorski: Really?
Daisy: And… yeah, for, like, $200 or something.
Stephen Skorski: Ugh.
Daisy: But it's fine, you have enough chairs, so you can have these ones.
Daisy: And then, I guess, yeah, those are pretty much the only chairs I have, but I do have…
Daisy: an artist that also showed at the Contemporary Art Gallery.
Daisy: Named Corey Looker. I don't know if they're making furniture or not anymore.
Daisy: But they made this amazing chair.
Daisy: It's actually called the Vagina Chair, because it's, like, sort of shaped like that, but it's covered in black velvet, and the legs are, like, glass legs. It's very cool, like, definitely a statement piece.
Daisy: not even the comfiest to sit in, but, like, beautiful to look at. And she texted me one day, and she was like, hey, do you want this black velvet that's on this chair? I'm about to throw it away. And I was like, don't you
Daisy: DARE. I'm coming over, and I'm grabbing that chair right now. So, I… yeah, I got one of the coolest pieces in my house.
Daisy: Because… Wait.
Stephen Skorski: You got the chair, or the fabric?
Daisy: the chair.
Stephen Skorski: Whaaat!
Daisy: I got the chair, yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, my God, that's amazing!
Daisy: And it's traveled all of the United States with me.
Daisy: Even though it's not a comfortable chair.
Stephen Skorski: Well, that's okay. You know, chairs don't need to be comfortable. I mean, some of them, some of them do. They don't all need to be comfortable.
Stephen Skorski: Some of them you can just look at. That's… okay, so in your… so you said you're… you started off, and it just sort of flew by me. You are moving? Find… getting a new place pretty soon, is that right?
Daisy: Yeah, so we…
Daisy: I mean, you… you might not want to put this part in the podcast, because it is sad. It's a sad story. But, basically, we… we live on a lake right now. It's been a slice of heaven, literally. I mean, it could…
Daisy: could not be better circumstances in terms of, you know, we've lived our best lives here.
Daisy: And we really, really don't want to leave. We've fallen in love with our landlord. He's this brilliant.
Daisy: Just really quirky, unique guy, and
Daisy: he really took a chance on us. We found the listing on Craigslist. It was written as a poem.
Stephen Skorski: Come on.
Daisy: It's a virtual houseboat.
Daisy: As you lay in bed, you balance the moon on your toe, and when you wake up in the morning, the water's reflection
Daisy: Shimmers on the ceiling.
Stephen Skorski: And…
Daisy: And it was like, okay, this is so weird, it has to be real. So, after looking for months for a place to live, we landed on this place. We've been here for 3 years, but,
Daisy: Yeah. Unfortunately, He's sick, so…
Stephen Skorski: Aww.
Daisy: We have to move, but, you know.
Daisy: the silver lining is, it's sort of propelled us into this world of real estate, and we've spent the past year looking for a house to buy. And just yesterday, we had the inspection done, and the coast is clear. We are officially buying this house.
Stephen Skorski: Wow, congratulations! That's amazing.
Daisy: you.
Stephen Skorski: That's amazing! So, in your head,
Stephen Skorski: Are you already figuring out where your tiny things are gonna go in this new space?
Daisy: Yeah, yes, I've fully planned out every single detail of this house already.
Stephen Skorski: Really?
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, that's the fun… I mean, how fun is that? Where's the vagina chair going?
Daisy: That's gonna go in our living room.
Stephen Skorski: Of course. No one can sit in it, right? It's one of those things, it's like, yeah.
Daisy: Like, unless you really want it.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, you're right. See, I know you're kryptonite, right? I mean, that's your… that's the thing now. I will say, when you were saying that, I was thinking you kind of painted yourself in a bit of a corner, because if your sister does listen to this…
Stephen Skorski: She's gonna say, well, I heard you make the statement that if someone comes into your house.
Stephen Skorski: and declares that they like something, you will give it to them. So, those micro-machines might be…
Stephen Skorski: Slightly in danger.
Daisy: Thing is, she doesn't even know that I have the micro-machines.
Stephen Skorski: She might, someday.
Daisy: There's been… There's been deep deception, and…
Stephen Skorski: Talk about something to edit out, right?
Stephen Skorski: I do actually almost no editing, so if there's anything in here that you're like, please take that out, then I certainly will.
Daisy: No, I'm kidding. I'm an open book. I share everything, and… yeah, who doesn't love a little drama?
Stephen Skorski: Mmm, I know. Oh, well, anyway, congratulations, that is very, very cool.
Stephen Skorski: And I love that you're, you know, already thought about, you know, kind of where everything is. And it does give you an opportunity, you kind of talked about that. You know, maybe you start a new collection.
Stephen Skorski: So, I am curious, do you… I mean, in your collection now.
Stephen Skorski: Or maybe it's gonna trans… Kind of…
Stephen Skorski: kind of move in a certain direction. Do you collect certain things, right? Is it always just a touchstone to a memory, or are you like, oh, I know I really love mini books, or I really love mini animals, or something like that? Is there a theme in there?
Daisy: Can I say all of the above?
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, of course.
Daisy: I will.
Daisy: I love mini books. I also love mini animals.
Daisy: I love many things that are related to my career, so, like, I have a mini sewing machine, and I have mini scissors, and yeah, so…
Daisy: I'm, you know, I… I'm drawn to miniature things that are related to my several niche… interests.
Stephen Skorski: God, it's…
Stephen Skorski: I wish I had a better way to ask that… I'm still trying to… I want to get into your head, you know? Like, I really… like, I'm so… I'm just… the decision-making process of full-scale versus small scale, that's the thing that's, like, getting me, you know? Do you ever buy two of something? Does that happen? You go, yeah, I want the big chair, and I want the small one.
Daisy: Oh, I would definitely do that.
Stephen Skorski: You would, okay.
Daisy: Opportunity presented itself to me.
Daisy: I… I would do that, for sure.
Stephen Skorski: Do you have a mini version of, like, the car that you drive right now? Is there a Matchbox car in your house of the current vehicle?
Daisy: Oh no, my car's not cool enough to have a miniature version.
Daisy: I wish!
Daisy: But I did, get a, miniature version of the Porsche that my neighbor has, and just left it on his, driveway.
Daisy: And… I don't even know if he knew it was me.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, you bought it and left it on his driveway?
Daisy: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Did he just run it over? How did he know it was there?
Daisy: Well, it was like, you know, it was… it was an obvious place.
Daisy: I'm gonna run it over.
Stephen Skorski: Because you know they're small, right?
Daisy: It's like, it's not so small that it would get mistaken for, like, an eraser top, you know? It's like…
Stephen Skorski: Right.
Daisy: It's big enough to be noticeable, but definitely smaller than the real car.
Stephen Skorski: And you don't… and this person may not know that you gave it to them.
Daisy: Definitely doesn't know.
Stephen Skorski: Wow. All right. What's the… you're a gift giver. What's your love language? Is this… is this, because you said you don't even like gifts, but now this is, like, gosh, about 4 times… 4 times now you've mentioned giving and sharing, and, you know, now it's like you're… you're giving things anonymously.
Daisy: Is this… no, I mean, really, it's amazing. I love… what do you… what kind of feeling do you get when you do something like that?
Daisy: It's mostly, like, a sneaky feeling.
Stephen Skorski: Okay. Your love language is deception.
Daisy: No, I think definitely my love language is…
Daisy: in terms of the love language, I…
Daisy: show to others, is I'm… I'm a gift giver. Even if that's not their love language, I'm like, well, you're getting a gift anyways. But…
Daisy: But yeah, my personal love language is not… Is not gift getting.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, okay, and I don't know any… I mean, talk about speaking from ignorance. I know nothing about that book other than there's… I know gift-giving is one of those things, so,
Stephen Skorski: You know, maybe…
Daisy: really… I don't know my love language. I've, like, taken the test before, but I feel like…
Daisy: I change on a daily basis in terms of wants and needs that I couldn't tell you. Some days, I just need a hug, and other days, I don't want to be touched at all. So…
Stephen Skorski: No, I… well, it's funny you would say that, because, I mean, the reason why it's kind of fresh in my brain, maybe, like, a month or so ago, maybe two, someone had brought this up to me, that, you know, and they were like, well, what's your love language? I was like, I don't know, what are they? And they told me… and my answer was, well, all of them. Those are all my love languages.
Daisy: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: No, no, one must rise above the others. I was like, no, no, none must rise above the others, like, I want all of those things. I… I say that as well. All right, we're… yeah, well, we're doing nothing for the sales of that book in this podcast.
Stephen Skorski: Totally dispelling that myth, myth.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, so maybe a couple other… now, this is a kind of a weird question, but I did, like, the slightest bit of research, because I really did want to just talk to you and hear your impressions of these things, so I try not to really even cloud my brain with too much other information, but…
Stephen Skorski: I did just type in, you know, Google, and it said, you know, why would people collect miniatures?
Stephen Skorski: And, like, every single site talked about
Stephen Skorski: And not that every person had this, but it said, like, one of the benefits, this was listed, about having this, like, private world that's just yours, or having this very, kind of, controllable environment,
Stephen Skorski: I mean, do you think any of that plays into this? Because I actually, I don't think any of that's a bad thing, but I really was trying to figure out, like, oh, I could see why…
Stephen Skorski: And they had, like, these great pictures. Like, I saw there was a picture of, like, a little library.
Stephen Skorski: And being an architect, like, I, you know, I love making models, right? So, I see something like that, I don't think, like, oh, silly dollhouse. I think, like, oh, that's amazing, right? This is… what an incredible thing to have and be able to manipulate and curate and…
Stephen Skorski: And I… and from my own perspective, one of the reasons I enjoy
Stephen Skorski: Designing spaces, whether they ever get built or not.
Stephen Skorski: Is there… is a sense of… Creating my own world.
Stephen Skorski: And so I wonder, does that play into this… this, collection for you, or is that not something that really factors in?
Daisy: I think there is… there is a certain sense of, you know.
Daisy: control, like, you know, you only have control over what you say and what you do, so the fact that I have control over
Daisy: this… this collection, the fact that I can keep and hold on to these…
Daisy: Precious moments and memories that are… identified through… this object, you know?
Daisy: I guess that's where it's at for me, is not necessarily creating this world, but…
Daisy: in… in a similar way, it's just, like, having control of something. Like, that… that I have control over. I have control over…
Daisy: what… what little things I can possess, and taking care of them, and…
Daisy: taking them with me everywhere I go. Not… not like as in I take them to work with me.
Stephen Skorski: You're on the bus with a suitcase full of tiny cats, yeah.
Daisy: No, but just, like, any house that I've ever lived in, they've been there, so…
Daisy: Yeah, I guess, does that… does that answer your question, or…
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, no, totally. I mean, like I said, I, I've never… I've never thought of these… first of all, I do like…
Stephen Skorski: Certain tiny things.
Stephen Skorski: The small chair thing, yeah, I mean, I don't know, you know, I'm sure you've looked at this, but there are…
Stephen Skorski: Well, first of all, sometimes our students will do exactly what you talked about, you know, we'll have them 3D print. That hasn't happened in a while, but when 3D printers sort of first became readily, you know, sort of available, that was a kind of a nice project for students to do. So, you know, you see these things, and then there's been some commercial
Stephen Skorski: Versions of the tiny chairs,
Stephen Skorski: you know, all, you know, a lot of the iconic ones, and they were, like, maybe, like, $20, $25, but then there was, like, even an elevated version of that, and I can't remember if you would buy it, like, through the MoMA, you know, gift store, you know, but it was something like that, and they were, like, $200, $300.
Daisy: Yes.
Stephen Skorski: And yeah, there is a part of me that is like, absolutely, I want a shelf, and I… because I'm not gonna have all those full-size chairs, but… So, you know, I'm attracted to tiny things in that way. Over the summer.
Stephen Skorski: or, yeah, the beginning of last summer, I was in… I take students to Venice every couple of years, and so we were in Venice, and there was a flea market, and there was this really fantastic miniature painting.
Stephen Skorski: And I didn't buy it. I regret not buying it.
Stephen Skorski: But it… I really… I really liked it, but I was a little confused why I liked it so much. Like, I knew why I would like it if it was, you know, 3 foot by 2 feet or something, but the fact that it was only, like, I don't know, 3 inch diameter or something.
Stephen Skorski: I was a little confused, and it wasn't cheap, right? So, I didn't get it, but I regret not getting it. So, I do understand the impulse of wanting smaller things.
Stephen Skorski: But I've never looked at it from the collector's standpoint, so no, everything you're saying is really insightful. And yeah, I mean, I'm asking questions that I think, and sometimes they're not easy to…
Stephen Skorski: explain, because I don't know that collecting is always particularly rational.
Daisy: Def- definitely not.
Stephen Skorski: You know.
Daisy: I fear what… I fear how the internet would psychoanalyze me if I said, why do I like tiny things so much?
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, don't type that into ChatGPT, I think.
Daisy: They're like, you have issues.
Stephen Skorski: Well, you know, it is funny, because that… when… when so many of those, sort of, like, the… and it was, like, 2 or 3 sites, I say so many, but it just seemed to be a pattern of, like, this idea of control,
Stephen Skorski: I… again, I didn't think of it as a negative. Like, I thought, oh, that's… that's really interesting.
Stephen Skorski: And so… This idea of curation.
Stephen Skorski: And rearranging them, and arranging them. It sounds like you do that…
Stephen Skorski: In the display, but it doesn't sound like you do that in, a tiny room.
Stephen Skorski: Is, is that, is that true?
Daisy: I have always wanted to have a tiny little art gallery, or something that I curate. Like, I love the idea of that. I also love the idea of, like, having a dollhouse that I designed to be my dream home, but now that I'm
Daisy: quite literally about to get a dream home, I'm like… I should just…
Daisy: I should just do it in full scale, but I could always, you know, do a smaller version of what I want to do to see if it looks good. Yeah. In my… in my practice,
Daisy: with, like, my full-time job, I…
Daisy: I don't know if it's weird or not, but every time we're planning out a new project, I always make miniature, rend… not renderings, I make miniature
Daisy: I'm spacing on the word right now. Oh, prototypes!
Stephen Skorski: Oh, cool.
Daisy: of what I'm going to make, and everybody thinks they're, like, the coolest thing, and, you know, I… partly I do it because of pleasure, but also I like to get a sense of, like, the plan, and…
Daisy: You know, it's like a… a real…
Daisy: it's like a 3D sketch, you know? I can visually see it in the space.
Daisy: And things like that. So there is a practicalness to the miniature, prototypes that I make for work, but there's also such a playful aspect to it as well. So… and I love, I love keeping the prototypes so that I can
Daisy: You know, a lot of times the projects that we install
Daisy: they get discarded, or they get donated, but I have a miniature…
Daisy: let's call it a museum of all of the things that I've ever made in prototype form. So…
Daisy: Yeah, I kind of forgot that I do that.
Stephen Skorski: That's awesome.
Daisy: But yeah, I guess that's considered part of my miniature obsession.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, no, I mean, that's amazing, and so… and I love… I love that you called it a museum, because I think it is.
Stephen Skorski: What do you… when you're… when you're making these prototypes.
Stephen Skorski: what's the primary material or materials that you use? Are you, like, sculpting these things out of clay? Are you, you know, just trying to replicate the… whatever the full-scale material is going to be? Or how exactly are you crafting these things?
Daisy: Yeah, so I usually craft them with, like, watercolor paper and chipboard or cardboard. Just super simple…
Daisy: You know, I have a plethora of those materials in my studio, so I usually construct them out of that, and then just, like, if I need to build a structure, I'll use, like, wooden dowels, like, round or square dowels, depending on how it goes together, and…
Daisy: Yeah, it's… it's just, like, fun, and it's…
Daisy: you know, it kind of preps my brain for the real thing, because when it goes to, like, actually making the full-scale project, sometimes it's hard for me to wrap my brain around every single step, but if I make it in, like, a small version first, I'm able to do the full-scale version
Daisy: so much quicker and easier, because I've already wrapped my head around the whole, plan, you know?
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, no, God, absolutely.
Daisy: TMI, you asked about materials, and yeah, I just use…
Daisy: Use what I have laying around, mostly. Trash.
Stephen Skorski: And no, that's not TMI. I want to… I mean, I… like I said, I would talk to you about that for the next 3 hours. Like, you know, no, really, because, I mean, I love… so one of the things that I… I love…
Stephen Skorski: to do in my… in my own life, although I don't do it very much anymore, but when I was a, you know, kind of…
Stephen Skorski: Practicing architect, I love model making, but my studios, we… we always make models. So, I love constructing anything. So now, for myself, I get into the woodshop on occasion, and I'll do some, like, sculptural
Stephen Skorski: pieces on occasion, you know, that sort of thing. So, no, I love the idea of, you know, putting things together, doing, you know, whatever, 20 iterations of something first to figure out, you know, exactly where you want to go. So, no, to hear that that's part of your process, and then the idea that you can keep that.
Stephen Skorski: and incorporate that into this other… you know, that it's now a subsection of this bigger collection, I think that's amazing. It feels… like, that's where it feels like you're able to find some really nice, balance between what you love to do and what you're getting paid to do.
Daisy: For sure. And I… I always joke about how I'm gonna open up a mini anthropology display museum.
Daisy: Like, in our break room or something, like, just have the lockers be a museum of all of the displays that I've done.
Stephen Skorski: I think… I think that's a brilliant idea, actually. Thanks. That's… yeah, talk to, you know, the VP of Marketing or whatever, and see if you… see if you can't do a joint venture with LEGO, right? Oh, yes. Like, a LEGO kit, and then… I mean, come on, right? I think we're…
Daisy: I would love… I'm actually… I'm going to, Philadelphia in April to do prototyping for our
Daisy: our, fall displays, so I'll… I'll pitch an idea. I would so… I would be so down to do a miniature installation
Daisy: get featured on Instagram.
Stephen Skorski: I mean, what little kid wouldn't love that? You know what I mean? Seriously, like, I mean, I don't know, I mean, I haven't been in a toy aisle, you know, since I was a kid, probably, but… so I don't quite know what they're selling, but the idea that you would sell, sort of, this, storefront.
Stephen Skorski: You know, with, like, 3 or 4 different display windows, and then you had just this kind of crate full of little things to put in there, it would be amazing.
Daisy: The one thing that I have not been able to relate to that you've said is that you haven't been in a toy aisle since you were a kid.
Daisy: The rest of the store is so boring!
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, isn't that funny? I don't know, I… ugh…
Stephen Skorski: I guess my… I like,
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, I don't know, I guess I've graduated towards the real thing, you know?
Daisy: Adult toys.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, but I don't mean adult toys like, oh, now I'm into cars. Like, I'm still into playing baseball, you know what I mean? Like, I live my life like a 12-year-old. Like, I like baseball and, collecting, well, baseball cards, and
Stephen Skorski: you know, records and, you know, all the things that, like, if you were 12 and you had money, you would go out and buy for yourself, that's pretty much where I've landed at this point.
Daisy: Yes, a kid with adult money.
Stephen Skorski: Yes, it's so… it's actually… talk about a, a gift, you know, just a genuine pleasure to be able to walk into a record store or something like that, and know that you can actually buy something and not, you know… I don't know, you don't have to ask somebody's permission.
Stephen Skorski: Which is… that's really nice. Okay, so… just a few other things, and I appreciate your time, because this is really such an interesting conversation. If somebody wanted to get into this hobby of collecting miniatures.
Stephen Skorski: I mean, for you, it is… it seems so personal, and so deeply rooted in your life, really.
Stephen Skorski: But…
Stephen Skorski: let's just say someone listens to this, and they go, God, you know what? That sounds like such a fun thing. What would you recommend for them? Where do they… where do they start? What gets the ball rolling for them?
Daisy: I mean…
Daisy: Sony's Angels? Like…
Stephen Skorski: What is it?
Daisy: It's like these little tiny… babies…
Daisy: they're little angels, and sometimes they have, like, fruit on their head, or… I don't know.
Stephen Skorski: Is it Anne Get It? Who's that person who takes, like, pictures of, like, kids and cabbage and stuff?
Daisy: Oh, I… I grew up with those… those pictures, like, on my bathroom wall, so…
Stephen Skorski: Nightmares are made of those things, I think.
Stephen Skorski: I probably have, like, a Pinterest board just dedicated to babies dressed up as salads.
Stephen Skorski: You love it. You're into it.
Daisy: I'm a fan.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, that's great.
Daisy: It is kind of weird.
Daisy: But I don't… I have a bunch of friends who, yeah, they're… they're not into little things the way that I am, but…
Daisy: they do collect small things, and a lot of them are, like, mass-produced little things, like there's Sony's Angels, there's a bunch of brands of, like, mystery boxes that people open.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, yeah.
Daisy: and, you know, you never know what you're gonna get, that's kind of part of the surprise. I'm not necessarily, like, drawn towards,
Daisy: Those products, just because…
Daisy: you know, it's like consumerism to me. It's… which, I mean, that is my collection of tiny things, I suppose, but my collection isn't rooted in consumerism, I'd like to believe.
Daisy: I feel like…
Daisy: it's rooted in wanting to hold tight to memories and moments, but, like, the Sony's Angels, for instance, they market them to be absolutely irresistibly cute, and that's where a lot of people start with their tiny thing collection, or they could start there.
Stephen Skorski: Other than that, like…
Daisy: you know.
Daisy: you don't have to purchase a tiny thing to find it. Sometimes they've… those little things just find you. You're like, oh, wow, I just found a…
Daisy: Plastic little tiny duck
Daisy: on… on my walk. Like, where did this come from? That actually happened to me when I was in Indiana. I was just walking with my niece and nephew, and on the sidewalk was a tiny plastic duck.
Daisy: I was like, wow, I'm gonna keep this.
Stephen Skorski: Aww.
Daisy: Remind me of this walk, like…
Stephen Skorski: That is really… ugh.
Stephen Skorski: That's sweet. What a better way of… remembering…
Stephen Skorski: a moment than, like, taking a picture and posting it on Facebook.
Stephen Skorski: You know? Right. Really, I mean, don't get me wrong, I mean, pictures are wonderful.
Stephen Skorski: And I do like them, I appreciate them.
Stephen Skorski: But it is, you know, they get lost in your phone,
Stephen Skorski: And they just, I don't know, whatever. They don't reappear very often, where this little duck
Stephen Skorski: You know, if you have it out,
Stephen Skorski: I don't know, just probably… there's something about an object. Like, I think one of the reasons I like talking to people about their collections… not I think, I know.
Stephen Skorski: really, for me, it's about people's relationships to objects. That's… that's at the root of my interest in all of this, is…
Stephen Skorski: yeah, the collector mentality and kind of what the thing is, but I think really, really at the foundation, it's how people relate to objects, and what they value, and…
Stephen Skorski: you know, what they get out of that, like, how that's not a one-way street. So it's really fascinating to hear your…
Stephen Skorski: relationship with these tiny things. Yeah, I love that.
Stephen Skorski: so… Anyone, they just start, they buy, they buy what makes them feel good,
Stephen Skorski: And maybe, you know, a question in there is, when you…
Stephen Skorski: Get your… when you get something.
Stephen Skorski: Is it… is it… what's the first thing that kind of hits you? What it is? You know, kind of… it's a duck?
Stephen Skorski: Or is it the feeling you get by having this thing?
Stephen Skorski: Right, is it?
Daisy: It's so small and cute and tiny!
Daisy: Like, it doesn't even register what it is, but it's just, I know this is small and cute and tiny.
Stephen Skorski: That's it, that's the overwhelming feeling.
Daisy: I mean, yeah, basically, just, like, cuteness overload.
Stephen Skorski: Alright, I like that. So…
Daisy: Oh, wait one second. You had mentioned earlier that, you wanted to buy a little painting, and I actually… I'm not offering a painting for you. I have a little painting that I got when,
Daisy: we were… we went to Australia together, and that's where my husband proposed to me, and we were walking around this park, and…
Daisy: There was a gift shop in there, and there was a person painting tiny, tiny canvases, and they painted a tiny canvas of, you know, two figures walking through the
Daisy: through the park, and we ended up buying it, and yeah, you know, it wasn't… that's probably my most expensive tiny thing, but it's, like, probably one of my most precious things. It's just such a…
Daisy: You know, the fact that it's handmade, hand-painted, and small, like…
Daisy: It doesn't get better than that.
Stephen Skorski: No. That's checking all your boxes right there, that's…
Stephen Skorski: No, that… but that's… I mean, really, that's,
Stephen Skorski: Life goes by way too fast, and so when you have these things that…
Stephen Skorski: compress time, or take you back to a moment. Yeah, I mean, again, I don't know. It's very hard to…
Stephen Skorski: or impossible to put a dollar, you know, a value on something like that. Like, that's just, you know, falls into that category of magic, I think.
Daisy: For sure.
Stephen Skorski: So, alright, let… we'll wrap it up, because again, I don't want to take up your entire evening, but this is… it's been really fascinating. So, just a couple of last questions.
Daisy: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: Because you alluded to it earlier, and we kind of joked, like, I would hate to see what, you know, the internet would say about you. But, but…
Stephen Skorski: I mean, along those lines, I mean, what do you think your miniatures
Stephen Skorski: Say about you? About your personality, about your approach to life.
Daisy: I think they… they definitely show my innocence, in a way. Like, just… you know, I'm…
Daisy: To quote a famous saying, like, I'm just a girl, like, I just…
Daisy: You know, I think that they…
Daisy: they show my… my innocence and just the… the child-like playfulness that I carry through my daily life. Like, I'm… I'm constantly playing and joking and, you know, if I'm… if I'm not having fun, I'm having a bad time. Like, honestly.
Daisy: I love a good time, I love laughing, and, you know, I mean, who doesn't like feeling happy and joy, and I have a hard time when I'm not feeling those things. So I think that, you know, that collection definitely
Daisy: showcases that… I… I am playful, I find the…
Daisy: The childhood nostalgia, very comforting, and,
Daisy: I'm always craving that feeling of nostalgia, you know?
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Stephen Skorski: Any idea why that might be?
Daisy: I think going… just going back to what I had mentioned earlier, like, you get so caught up in this adult life, and all of these
Daisy: All of these duties that you have to perform day-to-day, and… You kind of lose that…
Daisy: Childlike exploration of the world when, you know.
Daisy: I'm always looking on the ground in hopes that I'm gonna find a tiny thing.
Stephen Skorski: So you are an optimist.
Daisy: Yeah, def- oh, definitely.
Stephen Skorski: I love it.
Daisy: Well, this week…
Stephen Skorski: Right, right. That's, that's fantastic.
Stephen Skorski: You want to hear my idea for a miniature? I was thinking… I was thinking about this this afternoon. Yes.
Stephen Skorski: This is… this is… and someone has probably already done this, but I think you should make… somebody should make… a miniature box of cereal.
Stephen Skorski: And in the box of cereal should be a miniature toy.
Stephen Skorski: Like you would normally get.
Stephen Skorski: In a box of cereal.
Daisy: I think that's a good idea, and if nobody's done it, you should be the first.
Stephen Skorski: Right, because you'd get down to, like, the size of, like… A pinhead.
Stephen Skorski: Right? I mean, it could just be, like, this Russian nesting doll kind of scenario, where it's just smaller and smaller and smaller.
Stephen Skorski: Until… You know, I don't know. I love that idea.
Daisy: In my… in my pantry right now, I've got a bunch of regular-sized cans, boring, but right in front of them.
Daisy: A clear container.
Daisy: Full of different types of miniature cans.
Daisy: There's even miniature jars that have, like, peas in them.
Stephen Skorski: Really? Like, real peas?
Daisy: Not real. I think they're fake. I hope they're fake.
Stephen Skorski: But I think you're not, they're, like, the size of…
Daisy: what's an everyday object? I… I don't know, they're, like, the size of a… Ugh.
Daisy: a bead, like, I don'.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, it's…
Daisy: I don't know what to use as, like, a description word for them, but they're small, just…
Stephen Skorski: But they're peas. No, I get it. I can totally picture that.
Stephen Skorski: And I did read, that was one of the other things that I read, that there was a subset of people who are really into crafting miniature food, and that some of that can get really, really expensive.
Stephen Skorski: And then it said something about how there are other people who actually cook, like, real miniature food, and I thought, well.
Daisy: Yeah, that's good.
Stephen Skorski: because… because I'll be honest with you, I draw the line at…
Stephen Skorski: miniature food. Like, I'm sorry, a small package of M&Ms? That's not fun. That's not…
Stephen Skorski: That's not better than a big bag of M&Ms.
Daisy: You're… you're itching a nostalgic… like, you're…
Daisy: You're definitely itching my nostalgia right now, because I… I literally went to the library this past summer, and they happened to have had my favorite book growing up. It was American Girl Doll.
Daisy: miniature food. And it, like, had a bunch of how-tos on how to make miniature things out of food. One's, like, a pair of…
Daisy: Cute.
Daisy: fuzzy slippers out of marshmallows, or like…
Daisy: How to make miniature s'mores. So I love, love, love miniature food, and the adult form of that, is…
Stephen Skorski: tapas.
Daisy: And so I do that every time I have… guests come over.
Daisy: I make, like, bite-sized things, tapas, basically, different plates of…
Daisy: of small bites to eat, and then for my birthday this year, I did, miniature breakfast foods. So I did miniature waffles, mini pancakes, like, Clement.
Daisy: What else was there?
Daisy: There… there… I had every…
Daisy: Oh, I did mini muffins, just all sorts of breakfast food, everything you can imagine, but small. Oh, mini bagels? Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: That's amazing! I mean, this is, this has been so much more than I thought it would be. Not that I… not that I thought this would be uninteresting, but I wasn't quite sure…
Stephen Skorski: You know, because like I said, I didn't know anything, right?
Daisy: Right.
Stephen Skorski: But the thing that I'm taking away from this is that…
Stephen Skorski: This is not a… this is not just a collection, this is, like, a way of life.
Daisy: This is a lifestyle.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, I mean, it really feels like it's part of your story.
Stephen Skorski: Is that… is that… and that's really… that will be the last question that I'll ask of you, like, does that feel right? Like, you know, when all is said and done, you're, you know, 106 years old, and, you know, they're writing the story of you. Is this gonna be, like, in the first paragraph?
Stephen Skorski: Yes. Yes.
Daisy: I also wasn't quite sure how this conversation would go, because, you know, I've never really…
Daisy: gotten very introspective about my collection of tiny things. You know, I just texted you, and I said.
Daisy: you know, I'm sure there's more interesting people out there, not really, but…
Daisy: I mean, I know I'm interesting, but I… I didn't think that…
Daisy: having little things was all that interesting, but, you know, after talking to you about it and getting a bit more introspective about it, I think, you know, there is a lot of…
Daisy: meaning behind what I do, despite not always, like, focusing on the meaning.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Well, I mean, that's what's been so enjoyable about the conversation, is…
Stephen Skorski: I think, yeah, I think collections really say a lot about a person.
Stephen Skorski: not just, like, in one way, you know? And I would say not in the obvious way.
Stephen Skorski: You know, if somebody looked at my collections.
Stephen Skorski: And they say, oh, you know, you collect
Stephen Skorski: baseball bats. Well, you must like baseball. Like, yeah, okay, that's true. That's the sort of the simple one-liner, but if you dig not too far down, you know, you get into much, much more interesting
Stephen Skorski: I guess, elements of who I am, and so I find that with everybody. You know, once they start talking about a collection and, you know, something that's meaningful to them and something they love, you just get to know, you know, you get to know them in a way that is so…
Stephen Skorski: Different than if you approach
Stephen Skorski: kind of the standard way of, like, oh, you know, hi, how are you? What do you do? Like, what's your job? You know, that kind of thing.
Daisy: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Often that doesn't go… Too far, where when someone talks about This… this thing that they…
Stephen Skorski: really… you know, they spend energy and, you know, resources on accumulating these things. I love it. I think it's great. I mean, it's, and I think it's so interesting the way that your professional life, in terms of, like, the making.
Stephen Skorski: wraps into your collection and your art practice. I mean, that… I know earlier you talked about finding balance, but it does sound like you're… you're… you're… you're pretty close, or you're certainly well on your way. I mean, I don't know, it sounds like you found a pretty nice little line of…
Stephen Skorski: existence.
Daisy: I'm within reach, but I'm gonna…
Daisy: have to keep practicing. And my one… miniature regret.
Stephen Skorski: oh my god, this'll be the last question. How did I not ask that? Yes, you're.
Daisy: What?
Stephen Skorski: Miniature regret.
Daisy: was one time, there was a miniature baseball bat, and for whatever reason, I picked it up, and then I set it down, and I was like, I'll…
Daisy: I'll pick that back up later if I'm still thinking about it. And then by the time I had gotten in the car and had left and been on my way home, I was like, oh my gosh, I forgot the miniature baseball bat. So it's crazy, do you actually collect baseball bats?
Stephen Skorski: I do.
Daisy: I do. Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: I love them.
Daisy: So there might be a miniature baseball bat out there waiting for you.
Stephen Skorski: How many a chair was it? Just, I'm just curious. Was it… was it kind of like the, you know, kind of 18-inch kind of size, or like… like the pen size, or even smaller?
Daisy: Wasn't pen size, it looked like it was maybe used for, like.
Daisy: a table game, or something, but it was wooden, which I really liked, and…
Daisy: Yeah, I don't know why I… I didn't get it.
Daisy: Because I'm not particularly interested in baseball, I suppose.
Stephen Skorski: Well, if I ever come across a miniature baseball bat, I'm gonna buy it, and I'm gonna text you, or text Brandon, and I will… I will put that in a little envelope with a little stamp, and send it up your way, and hopefully you can find a little room for it.
Daisy: Yes.
Daisy: Thank you, I really appreciate that.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah! Well, Daisy, thank… this has been awesome. I really have enjoyed this conversation.
Daisy: Thanks, me too!
Stephen Skorski: Aw, well, I'm happy to hear that. So, I suspect you probably have some dinner to eat, and husbands to say hello to, and…
Stephen Skorski: Other… you said dogs to take care of, is that right?
Daisy: Yeah, I got 2 big dogs. But they've been with me this whole time, don't worry.
Stephen Skorski: Not many… not mini dogs. You draw the line at… Yeah.
Daisy: I don't draw the line at mini dogs. I love
Daisy: I had a lot of chihuahuas growing up.
Daisy: My husband isn't a fan of the mini dogs, so that's one compromise we'll have to make later in life.
Daisy: Little teacup.
Stephen Skorski: you know, Poodle or something like that.
Daisy: Oh, yeah.
Daisy: One can dream.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah. Awesome. Well, again, thank you so much. I hope that you have a fantastic night. And, yeah, I will… I will be in touch, because, you know, you did give me a little teaser about, Ben, your husband, having an amazing,
Stephen Skorski: Collection of 3… what, 35mm slides? Is that correct?
Daisy: Yes, he… and photographs, and he is…
Daisy: He's so much… he has so much more…
Daisy: educational information to share than I ever could. I'm like, it's cute and small, and he has, like.
Daisy: very, very, very interesting things to say, so I think you'd enjoy talking to him about his collection, and if you think that I have passion for tiny things.
Daisy: Just wait till you hear him talk about 35mm slides.
Stephen Skorski: That's awesome. That's really fantastic. Well, I would love to do that. I will most certainly… I,
Stephen Skorski: I go back to North Carolina this weekend, so maybe, you know, I'll get in touch, you know, within a week or so, and maybe Ben can find a… find a little bit of time sometime, because I would, I would absolutely love, love to hear that. And you know, the thing is, like…
Stephen Skorski: There's something really wonderful about hearing the technical aspects of a collection, and why that happens, or how it happens, but there's… but the emotional part of it is just…
Stephen Skorski: you know, fantastic. Yeah. So many of the… like, we didn't talk about anything technical today.
Stephen Skorski: But I think all of the things that you were talking about, and how they… you know, let's face it, I think the common denominator is they… it touches you in a way that other things don't. And I suspect a lot of people will really relate.
Stephen Skorski: to that, and if they don't right now, you've said a lot of things that… it'll make someone go, yeah, maybe I'm… let me try that. And I… that, I think, is so interesting, because my guess is someone will listen to this, eventually, at least, I hope, and…
Stephen Skorski: say, yeah, let me try this, and then their life becomes better, because they start to experience some of the things that you've talked about. And I think that's pretty wonderful, for you to communicate that.
Daisy: Well, I hope… I hope that happens, and if…
Daisy: If I'm the only one that listens to it, that's alright.
Daisy: I'll be cringing at my own voice the entire time.
Stephen Skorski: Oh my god, you sound great. This is fantastic. Really, really great. Well, again, thank you so much. I hope that you have a fantastic night, and yeah, I will definitely, be in touch.
Daisy: Sounds great. I can't wait to hear it, and share it with everybody I know.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, good, good. And my… just to get to, you know, I think the timeline is probably about 2 weeks or so. I, this is… so this is a new podcast, and I wanted to have maybe, like, 5 or 6 in the bag, when I launched, and so I'm up to about 5.
Stephen Skorski: So I do want to get a couple more, and then once that goes live, I will certainly, you know, let you know, obviously, that.
Daisy: Well, if I think of anybody who has, like, a really cool collection, I'll let you know.
Stephen Skorski: Cool, thank you, I would appreciate that, because that really is,
Stephen Skorski: you know, that's kind of the best way for me to be introduced to people, and really, I just think it is amazing. Like, I have enjoyed this conversation so much. It's something I never thought about,
Stephen Skorski: And I would… the kind of the danger of this thing for me is I do have, like, a… I'm not… I don't have an addictive personality, like, I… like, most of the things that fall into, like, an addiction, I have zero problem with.
Stephen Skorski: But I do have a collector's mentality, so every time I talk to someone, I'm like, oh my god, I want to go collect… like, now I want to go out and buy a few small things.
Daisy: It's contagious.
Stephen Skorski: Yes, it really… and the thing that got me was, I did… I went on Amazon, and I was like, well, what are they selling? And somebody was selling a little bookcase, and it had, like, 100 books, and it was maybe, like, 3 inches high, and it came with a little set of tweezers.
Stephen Skorski: And it wasn't that expensive, and I was like, I should get this, I should put this on my desk at work, that would be amazing.
Stephen Skorski: So, I don't know. I have to be careful.
Daisy: Don't… don't buy that Amazon bookcase. Just make one of your own.
Stephen Skorski: Really? Okay.
Stephen Skorski: It did seem a little too cheap, I… I thought.
Daisy: Yeah, I can tell you one thing, the Amazon Small Things purchases are not gonna bring you the same amount of joy as, like, a random purchase found in the wild.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, that's awesome. That's… that's actually really good advice. Okay, Amazon, off the list.
Daisy: No, no shame, I'm not judging.
Stephen Skorski: No, no, I get it, I get it. Awesome. Well, thanks again, Daisy. I hope you have a great night.
Daisy: You too! I'm gonna send you pictures, by the way, of… Oh, please!
Stephen Skorski: Jeez, I've got it. Actually, you know what? That would be awesome. I would love to see some images of these things. That would be great.
Daisy: Amazing. Alright, I'll talk to you soon. Alright, thanks, Daisy. Bye-bye. Stay in touch. Bye.