When I went to the dentist yesterday for my summertime appointment the girl who used to clean my teeth in the mid 2000's was taken back and dumbfounded that I actually could own 3,000 to 5,000 art books. Most people don't even bat an eye or raise an eye brow when I tell them how big my book collection is. I always wondered if no one believed me or thought I was just exagerating 100 art books as if it were 4,000 books. Her reaction was like my parents, telling me that is a tremendous amount of books to keep collect and own! She wasn't annoyed or upset about the size and space of my collection like my parents are mad at me about but she the dentist knew that it is not normal to own 4,000 art and non fiction books! She is the first one in years to actually react to me telling her about my book collection and personal private library! I have collected books since I bought them at comic con at age 13 or 14 and really picked up the amount of art books I would buy when I was 19 to 21. They had some awesome independent used bookshops with tons of art books on telegraph avenue in Berkeley in the late 1990s to early 2000's. My collection got out of control from my parents point of view when I because addicted and fixated with finding old used books at thrift stores like goodwill or out of the closet and the friends of the library used book shops located in all the libraries whose collections are all donated. I would often go thrift store library used bookstore shopping every week if not everyday almost and I would go to more than one store in the same day. I did this for years since october 2002 when I moved from Oakland to San Diego. I do have my dry periods where I'm off art books and don't go out buying anything for weeks or months at a time! The books I buy about 80% are under a $1 dollar or $2 dollars. 5% to 10% are over $5 dollars. The other 10% to 15% are between $2 and $5 dollars. Every time I was employed with a paid job I spent much of the money I earned on art books. All the books I buy I buy because I like them and want them in my collection. So I'm not someone who buys readers digest books or time life books at the thrift stores. I know my stuff. I don't use the internet while shopping for art books to find a books real value and how collectable and sought after it is! If I don't personally want it myself I almost never pick it up. If I go into a thrift store or library used book shop I will look at everybooks title on the shelves and pull down hundreds of books to look inside at it's contents and it's shape and condition. That means I visually sort through thousand of books titles in each shop I go to. I often go to more than one shop in a day. It's a hobby I can do on a tight budget because thrift shops sell books at garage sale prices. At the end of the visit at the thrift store I have my 3 to 15 books and I sort through which ones I will actually read and which ones I really want and which ones I'm never going to come across ever again. Out of my sorting I come to a decision on what I will keep and what I will pass on and put back on the shelf. I probably could find a cheaper or better condition book of the rare books I find, but how would I know about it to look it up online if I never came across it first while bookstore shopping? Meaning before you buy a book on Abebooks e-bay or amazon you'd have to know about it first and that such a book exists to know where to look to find it! I don't shop at Barnes and Nobles anymore except to once in a blue moon buy an art magazine like Juxtapoz or hi fructose. New books are cool but they don't excite me or turn me on! I like the thrill of coming across a killer rare one of a kind book but sheer of luck of being at the right place at the right time in a thrift store! The enemy of the art book collector is having enough space for keeping all my books and the mold or spotting that can grow on books if the get damp wet or damaged or are right next to any other books with mold growing on them!
I didn't go art book shopping this whole school year at Long Beach State. I'm willing to give away to friends books I own that they might like or want and not regret it of letting go of something I owned! I'd rather impress a friend with a nice gesture than have a book just sit on my shelf or in a box. Some books are part of me and I will never part with them ever but those are the 2% to 5% of my whole collection. I wouldn't know as much as I do about artists and art history if it were not for buying and reading all of these art books over the last 10 to 13 years along with my college art history classes and the library videos I watched about art and artists in art history. I could teach art history. I have not traveled the world as an adult so I could not transcribe the story of what most of the famous works of art look like in person when you see them or stand next to them in real life. Part of grad school for art history is traveling to the countries with the art you will be studying and researching so for me I keep it as my passion and my hobby and not my day job! Besides many, and I mean many, art history marxist communist acedemic stiff shirts art history people in the college environment don't have a real interesting personality and are boring people. I probably know as much if not more than most of them. I research on my own what I want to learn about and to study. My art history knowledge is not just what the teacher told us about in a class. I get almost all the Jeopardy questions about art, artists, and art history all correct and right, except for a few that I don't know and the contestants usually don't know either!
I didn't go art book shopping this whole school year at Long Beach State. I'm willing to give away to friends books I own that they might like or want and not regret it of letting go of something I owned! I'd rather impress a friend with a nice gesture than have a book just sit on my shelf or in a box. Some books are part of me and I will never part with them ever but those are the 2% to 5% of my whole collection. I wouldn't know as much as I do about artists and art history if it were not for buying and reading all of these art books over the last 10 to 13 years along with my college art history classes and the library videos I watched about art and artists in art history. I could teach art history. I have not traveled the world as an adult so I could not transcribe the story of what most of the famous works of art look like in person when you see them or stand next to them in real life. Part of grad school for art history is traveling to the countries with the art you will be studying and researching so for me I keep it as my passion and my hobby and not my day job! Besides many, and I mean many, art history marxist communist acedemic stiff shirts art history people in the college environment don't have a real interesting personality and are boring people. I probably know as much if not more than most of them. I research on my own what I want to learn about and to study. My art history knowledge is not just what the teacher told us about in a class. I get almost all the Jeopardy questions about art, artists, and art history all correct and right, except for a few that I don't know and the contestants usually don't know either!