Before Me

My mom collected luxury fashion ephemera for years.

This board hung in her closet, slowly filling up as new items came in. I don't know if she ever intended to make anything with these pieces, or even what initially inspired her to start saving them. Some of the tags have extra buttons attached from garments, so maybe that's where it began.

Either way, she kept them.

When I found the board, I carefully removed each tag one by one and placed them into a bag to bring home. A collection that had quietly existed for years was now waiting for its next chapter.

My vision is to transform these pieces into a collection of mixed media collages—or perhaps one larger work. The tags already carry a history: the brands, the materials, the clothing they were attached to, and the person who saved them.

A lot of my work is tied to found objects, some from family and others from strangers. Either way, I’m most interested in secondhand items because they’ve already lived a whole other life before I pick them up. They have history.