Artists’ residence is carefully curated at Mattress Factory

earlier works by William Anastasi and Meg Webster (she’s created a new artwork for the 40th anniversary exhibition, which continues through July 29).

Personal mementos have a place too. A small collection of memorabilia from the 1939 World’s Fair in New York pays homage to Ms. Luderowski’s father, Paul F. Simpson, who designed the fair’s Food Building. He established the Long Island architecture firm Aspinwall & Simpson with Harry Aspinwall, a fellow graduate of Carnegie Institute of Technology ( now Carnegie Mellon University).

Mr. Olijnyk told the story behind a small metallic relief rendition of the Virgin Mary. His mother, Christine Olijnyk, had complained that the right side of her toaster never worked. After her death, Mr. Olijnyk turned the toaster over and the devotional image fell out. “The BVM was all singed.”

They browse thrift stores, estate sales, flea markets — anywhere something unusual may lurk.

“Every time we buy something we have to ask ‘Where is it going to go?’ And we don’t get rid of anything. Everything just moves an inch,” Mr. Olijnyk said.

After years of scouting, “it’s still exciting to look and find something.

“You buy one thing because you like it. Then you learn about it and understand it, and you look for others,” he said.

“It’s like picking up pebbles on the beach,” Ms. Luderowski said. “Some you become attached to.

“Everything in here has a story. Some things have monetary value, which is not why I have them.”

She’s repaired some of her finds, which she acknowledges may diminish their value. But that isn’t a concern.

“I, as a sculptor and a technician of sorts, am drawn to those that need to be repaired. I love the improvisation of fixing them. I love the skills used to fix them. I’m drawn to things that have mechanical aspects — how many ways a doll’s body or a human body is articulated.”

Mr. Olijnyk admires the character an aging object acquires, like the patina on the wooden arm of a chair in his collection. “That comes from someone touching and touching it over the last 50 years. You just can’t fake it. There’s something beautiful about that.”

He began collecting mid20th-century design “at a time when few were looking. Now it’s rare to find something that nobody knows something about.”

Both described the collection as a visual diary, mingling the stories of the objects, of the circumstances of the objects when they were acquired, and of their lives.

“It’s an autobiography of sorts,” Ms. Luderowski said.

“Our house is how we get away from the museum,” Mr. Olijnyk said with a sense of irony.

“The upstairs is more an expression of what’s inside, and the downstairs is more an expression of what’s inside and outside. But you have to curate your thoughts,” said Ms. Luderowski.