Leftovers
Leftovers was a solo exhibition at Jennifer Lorraine Fraser's experimental micro museum the shoe box gallery in April of 2017.
Leftovers residing at the shoe box gallery celebrate small collections. Each white cube creates a home to objects that were once part of larger collections. Though incomplete, each collection's power to invoke vivid memories remains strong and their form holds potential for story telling. Through placement, narratives are created within the new walls of their existence. The origins of the collections are varied. Some of the collections come from towering vegetation along a local creek, a debris riddled beach along a great lake, a ditch along a prairie highway, a rock pile along the base of a mountain and a hilly graveyard along the ocean. A few of the collections are made up of inherited objects that were no longer needed by relatives or friends yet were well crafted, too kitschy to be true, or of some imagined historical importance. One collection memorializes an occupation within an industry that was difficult to navigate and the garments I wore everyday to work at a funeral parlour, were kept and transformed. These collections are combined with textile collections that were acquired through hand me downs, yard sales and boulevard waste. These threads, yarns, lace, ribbons and yardage are meaningful leftover collections themselves and used to wrap other objects adding colour and comfort to their incomplete existence. Leftovers are discarded by some as they are no longer new; their original design has been fulfilled and they will just go bad in the fridge. Though the collections grow dusty and take up more space than I have to give, they are worthy of the space and I don't dust anyway. They are cherished, sometimes more than the first time they were experienced, because that original moment is gone, inaccessible and this gives way to embellishment.
