(image from here)

 

Loved this collection of paper airplanes found by Harry Everett Smith on the streets of Manhattan during the years 1961-1983. He collected other things too.

Along with his many other talents and obsessions, Harry is also famous for creating the six-album compilation of folk music, The Anthology of American Folk Music. You can hear him talk here.

I am really interested in collections in general, and I love this one in particular because it speaks to so many things; ephemerality, childhood wonder and construction, the human urge to want to take flight, the ubiquity and diversity of cheap and accessible materials... It really scratches an itch for me.