We began our art collection in earnest three years ago. We’re both notoriously fickle with presents, so instead of the constant hang wringing about what to get each other for birthdays, we made a pact to buy art for all special occasions. The first piece we purchased under this pact was a Tomokazu Matsuyama piece for Jiae’s birthday, shortly followed by a Jen Che piece for John’s birthday. Over the years, we’ve acquired pieces from Logan Hicks, Yuri Shimojo, Hisham Bharoocha, José Parlá, Dietmar Busse, Andrew Paynter and Peter Sutherland.

We share our love of collecting with our guest curators (and close friends) Marc and Sara Schiller. In fact, theirs was the collection that really gave us the bug to want to collect. Beyond their awesome art collection, Marc & Sara, through their art blog, woostercollective.com, have been a huge influence on how contemporary culture perceives a subset of contemporary art — street art. In the hours between working and taking care of their daughter Sam and dog Hudson, they update their site with fresh documentation of ephermeral art found on the streets of New York City and around the world.

Together with Marc and Sara, we interviewed 12 collectors (ranging from artists to a gallerist to a librarian and postal worker) to get to the heart of what motivates each one to collect. Though the motivations are as varied as the collections, two common themes emerged from the interviews: each collector feels compelled to collect and each collector gets immense joy from being in contact with their collections. Which pretty much sums up why we collect.

Perhaps these stories will inspire you to start collecting the things you hold dear.

- Jiae and John