SARALYN REEEC HARDY'S BAG
Who: Saralyn Reece Hardy director of the Spencer Museum of Art
Contains:
 wallet
 gloves
 cell phone
 receipts
 notebook
 loose change
 Tea Rose perfume
 comb
 New Yorker magazine
 Gustave Courbet postcard
 Jeffrey Sachs book
 art reception announcements
 art essay book
 picture of sons
PHOTOS/ COURTNEY HAGEN
You can tell a lot about a person by the things they carry out with them. Thanks to rising interest, many people are taking a peek inside other people's handbags.
by Courtney Hagen
Andrea Potter has just returned home from her job with an apartment management company. Happy to be done with a long, trying day at work, the Branson, Mo., junior walks through the door of Rieger Scholarship Hall swinging her bright pink handbag. In her purse is a small collection of the things she relies on each day, from the necessary (reading glasses) to the not so necessary (glittery lip gloss).
Potter likes her bag
because it holds everything she needs, but every once in awhile she can't resist looking at what other people are carrying.
"There's a whole lot of different styles out there and they really show off a person's style," Potter says.
Thanks to the rise of a new media and technology subculture, Potter is free to indulge her voyeuristic desire to take a look at, and inside, other people's handbags. Currently there are a number of Web sites
that allow for the posting and dissecting of users' handbags and the contents that fill them.
To this global audience,
A special thread on Flickr.com, the photo sharing Web site, is dedicated entirely to over 2,000 photos posted by users of the personal items they carry in their bags each day. Other sites, like InsideMyBag.com, allow users to email photos of their bags to be posted and shared with viewers around the world.
privacy is off limits. Users post pictures of anything and everything they have inside their bags, from watercolor sets and laptops to sunglasses and iPods, for all to see. The items show off a wide spectrum of the lives they represent and, for some, are becoming a valid form of artistic expression.
Saralyn Reece Hardy, director of the Spencer Museum of Art, recognizes the appeal these sites have because of their tendency to expose the art of utility
in everyday life. Hardy thinks a cultural desire for individually defining aspects of life fuels the growth of this idea.
"There are small, personal items that mean things only for the person carrying them." Reece Hardy says. "The personal items that are sometimes concealed can be as beautiful and satisfying as public objects, too."
The handbags and the items leave small, archival imprints about what the carrier is doing or where they
are going on a certain day, says Sherry Williams, curator of the Kansas Collection at the Spencer Research Library.
"I suppose in a way people's papers document what they do." Williams says. "The contents of your purse on any given day could define what you do or who you are."
Whether the handbags and their contents have any deeper meaning doesn't matter much for Potter. For now, she's just interested in looking.
HANNAH MILLER'S BAG
**Who:** Hannah Miller Grove, Okla, sophomore
**Bag:** Basic black leather
**Where she carries it:** On errands to Target and out to dinner with friends
**What she likes about it:** It's easy to carry and the shoulder straps don't get stuck on her coats
ANDREA POTTER'S BAG
Who: Andrea Potter, Branson,Mo. sophomore
Bag: Bubblegum pink Dooney and Burke
Where she carries it: Anywhere but class
Contains: Reading glasses, loose change, perfume, wallet
KELLI HAUG'S BAG
**Who:** Kelli Haug, Salina junior
**Bag:** Tan basic everyday shoulder bag
**Contains:** Green wallet, sunglasses, mints
**Most interesting item:** Nintendo Power mints (in the shape of an old-school Nintendo controller)
03.01.2007 JAYPLAY < 07