Scraps, 2023-2024

Scraps represent the discarded, the leftover, and the unwanted. I am photographing scraps that my grandpa has collected and forgotten that he used to fix up our home. My photographs tame the chaos and stories this junk and my grandpa brought into our home. I use the images to think about why he always felt the need to build or repair something. Bringing what my grandma considered junk into our home constantly caused fights, making my grandpa feel undervalued. I don’t use these objects for what he had in mind, like sanding something down or building a fence, but to care for them; to show that there’s always beauty and potential in everything.
I bring a different type of experimentation to these materials. I create sculpture-like, abstract structures, and even make cyanotypes with these objects. I explore ways to re-purpose and bring a type of closure to these objects, and my grandpa. I want to show him that I see the hard work he put in, while also incorporating him in my ideas as an artist. These scraps that he once used to repair, have now turned into art; materials that were thrown and left to rust, have purpose once again.