Summary: with new pricing and display policies, the US Goodwill charity risks alienating the very collectors and upcycler artists it has been using to gentrify its brand identity. When I was a kid, thrift stores were forbidden territory. My mother had a not-unfounded horror of thrift stores as vectors of disease and infestation*. She also…
Read More Goodwill Loses Relevance?One of the perks of living in a large, relatively low-income Sun Belt city is the diversity of thrift store finds. As I’ve mentioned before, a lot of this transferred wealth comes from tragedy: retirees dying off and their heirs shoveling stuff to Goodwill or the dump, divorced or unemployed folks suddenly having to get…
Read More Thrift store treasures: flask and black glovesAs I type this post, I’m looking at a small package filled with about $40 worth of art supplies left over from the scrapbooking binge era circa 2003 to 2006. Which I scored not long ago for $3 at a local thrift store. There are expensive, well-made plastic circle templates spun on tiny ball-bearings. Pewter…
Read More Useful Objects: craft, thrift, and mortality