Collections

Sherry Dewane began collecting postcards nearly a decade ago. Her family owned the Stagecoach Motor Hotel in Phoenix. Years after the inn was sold and turned into a parking lot at Sky Harbor Airport, Dewane started searching for old postcards of her family’s demolished hotel.

Artists who work with found objects are notorious for having strange collections of random items waiting to be turned into art. An installation by two local artists spotlights their unusual collections and chronicles their time making art in the Valley.

High school teacher Teri Woods has been collecting Fiestaware since the 1980s, and she tells The Show why she started, and why she keeps going.

Phoenix resident Michael Thomas works for NAU’s admissions department. His home office has all the usual fixtures of a home office: a computer, framed photos, awards. But most of the room is taken up by Thomas’s massive vintage vacuum cleaner collection.

The latest installment of The Show's Collections series focuses on three leaves, or pages, from the Quran that are on display in the Rare Book Room at Burton Barr Central Library in Phoenix. ASU professor Han Hsien Liew tells us more.

From bottles to bola ties, we’ve heard about some interesting collections on The Show, but Dan Wilson’s collection is a little different. Instead of physical items, he’s got a pretty unique collection of tattoos.

Joe Weaver is an antiques shop owner and lamp collector. Weaver’s antiques shop on north Central Avenue in Phoenix is filled with all kinds of old things — but mostly lamps. Hundreds of them, all rare and restored by Weaver himself.

Autriya Maneshni’s collection of Converse Chuck Taylor shoes began with a fateful trip to Goodwill when she was in middle school. Since then, her collection has grown to feature more than a dozen pairs of the classic sneakers.

Collections is series from The Show devoted to devoted to the things we acquire and treasure. Janet Traylor’s collection of ancient apothecary and medicine bottles is kept in an old wooden ammunition box under the grand piano in her midtown Phoenix home.

Bola ties have been Arizona’s official state neckwear since 1971. They have a distinctly western feel, so it makes sense that the Desert Caballeros Western Museum in Wickenburg has such a large collection — about 300 — of them.