saved
“Saved” 2026.
Old buttons are molded and remade in clay, coloured with underglazes and glazes, layered in among cotton threads, and rearranged into an old, found cookie-tin. An homage to times past when sewing items were saved and re-used.
“saved, re-used, re-purposed, collected”
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Button collections, sewing supplies, and pieces of thread are often saved in an old tin, a cookie box, or small losenge containers. These re-purposed tins are a ‘place’ for re-using instead of discarding, re-purposing instead of buying new, and honour mending as an act of care and preserving.
“Saved” is a comment on the act of saving: to re-make, and to holding on instead of discarding. It is an homage to a domestic collection where the overabundance and overflowing buttons gives voice and presence to a way of being in the world.
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I sourced buttons rom my own collection and those I found in my mother’s old tins, to ones that were discarded in second-hand stores. I made rubber molds of each one and then pressed paper-clay into them to form an impression, a casting, and a memory of each. These are then fired several times and treated with underglaze and glaze to create the effect of the colourful collection.
I cast the buttons in a continuous and laborious, almost meditative fashion over months until the collection established its own voice through overabundance and repetition.
Layers of 100% cotton threads are fed in amongst them to help create the feeling that the box of buttons has a life of its own. There is a natural affinity between the button and the thread, the material that sews it in place and these are often stored together.
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