Chad Garrison, a staff writer for the Riverfront Times in St. Louis, recently interviewed me about Bill Keaggy and his book Milk Eggs Vodka (published by HOW Books). Today, he sent me a link to the story which provides some insight into Keaggy's creative life.

Bill Keaggy's best-known project, Grocery Lists, began unwittingly one afternoon in 1997. He was shopping for Diane's birthday dinner at the Schnucks at Hampton and Arsenal when he reached down to pick up a yellow scrap of paper on the floor. The discovery was so inconsequential that today he can't remember the exact details of the list other than it was written on a Post-it note.

Still, that particular list piqued his curiosity enough to search for additional grocery lists with each return trip to the supermarket. "When you go to the store, everything you purchase is out there for public display. It all goes through the checkout line," comments Keaggy. "But a person's grocery list is somehow very private. At the same time it's the most ephemeral thing in the world. You write it and then you pitch it."

After two years of collecting, Keaggy placed a dozen or so lists online where they quickly took on a life of their own. Suddenly viewers from around the globe were sending him photos of lists they, too, found during shopping excursions. A grocery store clerk in Iowa mailed packages stuffed full of the lists she'd discovered on the job. The more lists Keaggy placed online, the more people flocked to his Web site.

Posted by Megan