this brings a smile to my face

I found this site, Obsessive Consumption (via 407 In Vitro). It is the work of Kate Bligaman, a designer, teacher (and an obsessive consumer). She set out to draw every single object she bought, "to showcase her love/hate relationship with money, shopping, branding, credit cards, celebrity, advertising, and marketing". And when I say everything, I mean everything. From the coffee and doughnuts she had while waiting for the rain to stop...
... to this Louis Vuitton knock-off bag she bought at Wal-Mart.
She did this for 28 months! Take a look at her flickr page.


Now she's drawing her credit card statements (until they're all paid off, she says)!

I think what Kate does is brilliant (if only because I would like to do something like this myself). She showcases her compulsive behavior, but she takes it into a larger arena, offering a slight criticism of this whole over-consumed society. At the same time, she has created a brand to sell her products (which some might see as a bit ambiguous, I know, but aren't we all?). She now has a shop, selling all her stuff, "zines, stuffed things, drawings, screen prints, digital prints and buttons. All products revolve around consumption, debt, money, guilt and love". It's crazy, it's compulsive, it's human. And it's brilliant!