project template — Jenny Judge

repair: Shirt Buttons

“Repair” 2026. Cast-ceramics buttons are layered with threads to emulate a shirt-button collection that was once stored in a found lozenge-tin

“buttons were kept in an old lozenge tin”

“My mother stored my father’s work-shirt buttons in an old lozenge tin. It was filled with small white buttons with pieces of cotton thread to match. It was easily accessible so that a repair of a lost or loose button could quickly be made.”
“Repair” is a comment on the importance of saving and re-using threads, buttons, and garments in a time when discarding and buying fast-fashion is the norm. The work emphasises the necessity of mending, and choosing to repair as an act of resistance instead of relying on overproduction and fast-fashion.
I use a small found tin, similar to the ones used by my mother’s generation to store buttons; even the container she used was a re-purposed item, and I wanted emphasise this quality in the artwork.
I cast small shirt-buttons that were molded from my mother’s collection and my own, and individually cast them out of ceramics and glazed them with tones of white.
100% cotton thread is sewn through the buttons, and layered to create an over-abundance of basic mending materials. The work emphasiszes the notion of collecting, of repair through mending, and that re-use is a solution to the act of discarding.
“The Story of Repetition: From Many, One” Group Exhibition PARKSVILLE MUSEUM (July-August 2026)
‘26 Memory and Myth, Surface Design Association's 2026 International Exhibition in Print.