Retired Objects (2020)

(Size: each photograph, 16"x24")

For Retired Objects, I wrapped obsolete household articles with torn strips of muslin cloth and carefully arranged them inside hand-built wooden boxes. I wove wool blankets on the floor loom to place beneath the objects, creating a tender resting place for each. The objects are exhausted--well-loved, imbued with touch, trace, even DNA. These are the types of things that are difficult to throw away, years of use rendered them loyal companions. The project poses questions about memory, how objects become heavy with sentiment--holding and guarding our stories. Ordinary things become part of us: sacred, and perhaps partly human, exhibiting character, or even emotion, as they age and become expended.