“Haberdashery” is a lighthearted piece that investigates the objects we surround ourselves with and the stories they tell through collecting, overabundance, and saving.

This piece focuses on the threads we collect as part of haberdashery and, in this case, how they bind multiple elements together. There is the odd, sneaky figurine that works its way into the collection, trying hard to muddle the memories of my youth: I collected Wade Figurines from the Red Rose tea boxes when I was a young girl.

I use dyed paraffin wax as the main medium, and I cast spools, buttons, and other haberdashery from past sewing boxes (my own, my mother’s, and others found and discarded).

I have used wax as a craft artist for over 20 years, producing lost-wax sculptures in glass, and it is a material artists use for ‘in-between’ processes. In cast glass, for example, it is poured into moulds to recreate an object, then covered in a refractory plaster and melted out to reveal a negative space: the wax is lost in the process, the object as it was ceases to exist and is replaced by a new material (glass, bronze, silver, etc.).

In this installation piece, I consider wax as a material unto itself, researching its properties, not only in its ability to move from liquid to solid, but also as a metaphor for transition, capturing memory, and temporality, which are themes I have been working with for the past 7 years.

This work is still in progress and has not yet been formally exhibited.

This work relates to all pieces involving memory and object replication.