There are so many heartwarming moments in the Errol Morris documentary on American photographer, Elsa Dorfman, but I’ll choose just one. When 80-year old Dorfman, known for her large scale polaroid portraits, is asked about the family portraits in her archives, she laughs them off as her “B-sides.” The ones where a kid squints, where Mom blinks or where the portrait discolours in the chemical process — the ones the family did not want — have a humour, a charm and magic of their own. “It’s the perfect title,” Dorfman says, “Even to this minute, I’m really a B-side person.”

As a child, I used to love to collage. In my teens, collaging turned into scrap-booking. I kept everything from old movie stubs and match books to postcards, candy wrappers and magazine clippings and glued, stapled, taped them all into albums. I came across Malin Gabriella Nordin’s collages today and they inspired me to get back to glue and paper. Her recent work is colourful and highly textured, and her earlier collages have a surrealist quality to them. I like all of it, and her paintings, too. Here she is in her studio –– what a beautiful, vibrant mess.

I’m fascinated by collections, and the people who collect them. At the textile Museum this week, I came across a collection of Victorian needlework amassed by a woman named Jane Webster from the mid to late-20^th century. She lived in the Caribou Harbour area of Pictou, Nova Scotia. Webster had collected 130 pieces of needlework, each one stitched with a different motto: ‘God is Love,’ ‘Kind Words Never Die,’ ‘Remember the Creator.’ It was actually the photographs of Jane Webster and her family that I enjoyed most; Her standing on the porch with a big frying pan in her left hand, oven mitts on both, the children piled into the sun-room for summertime naps. The life and the love in the pictures seemed to mirror the mottos on her walls. “What is a home without a mother?” “Welcome all” “Token of Love” “Give us this day our daily bread.” It was a glimpse into another time, another place.

Launderettes and libraries have always had a certain romance in my mind. There were daydreams of me sitting on a washing machine with some quirky lovey dove by my side reading the local movie and rental listings. The library scenes were all inspired by Oliver and Jenny in Love story; towers of books, autumn leaves, long dark hair and a beautiful, fierce love. Thibaud Poiriere’s libraries from around the world series are the perfect backdrop for any great love tale. My very favourite is Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome. How could anyone not fall in love here?