I Can’t Stop Buying Decks of Cards
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It began with a deck of cards I made for my senior-thesis project at the School of Visual Arts. My style of photography back then was quiet, just documenting the everyday — a glass of water on the windowsill. Very Stephen Shore. I shot 250 images like this, selected 52 of my favorites, and made a card deck out of them. Then I made a sculpture resembling a game of solitaire with those cards for the art show. In the midst of this process, I started noticing playing cards everywhere, and my friends started to buy them for me when they’d travel. A hobby turned into a proper collection, and now I have over 70 decks, some neatly displayed on picture ledges in my living room. When I see a deck I like, I just get a gut feeling and go for it. I have cards from Japan and Mexico and from vintage stores that I’ve stumbled upon. And though I love to play rummy, I don’t play the collectible decks. I have a whole box of basic Bicycle and casino cards I use for that.
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David Shrigley Playing Cards
I’m a big fan of how cheeky Shrigley’s drawings are. This deck only has black suits. My friend Ranya gave it to me for my 30th birthday.
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I bought these on my wedding day. My husband, Josh, and I wanted to get married in the city where we met — not in L.A., where we were moving — so we decided to go to the courthouse and elope. We stayed at 11 Howard, and I bought this deck of cards on Canal Street to mark the moment.
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There’s a week in April that is packed with the birthdays of people I’m close with — lots of Tauruses. That’s why I bought this deck. It’s got a card inside with a very brief horoscope.
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When we lived in New York, Josh and I often drove through Cold Spring to visit our friends upstate. I have found so much good stuff in the antique stores there. This deck either came from Bijou Galleries or Cold Spring Antiques Center.
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The 14ers are mountains in Colorado that are all at least 14,000 feet high. There’s a different picture on every face, which isn’t common, and they’re all epically beautiful.
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These were a birthday gift. Every single card has a different portrait on it — one ten isThe Royal Tenenbaums; the jacks include Jackie O. and Jack Nicholson.
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I got these at either Frieze or the New York Art Book Fair one year. It’s based on Ruppersberg’sThe Novel That Writes Itself.I just love the name of this deck.
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Igarashi is a graphic designer and sculptor, and this deck, which is simplistic but not simple, is a very interesting play on repetition.
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I found these at a coffee shop when we first moved to L.A. Sometimes there’s a deck of cards next to the cash register and I can’t not buy it.
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For Josh’s 40th, we drove to Mendocino, and I picked these up at a flea market along the way.
The bridge feels romantic and of another era. The cards are smaller than most of my others.
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