There are 89 bottles in this room that I have collected over the past year. 

Each bottle is filled with objects that were my grandma’s, are my mother’s, are mine or are objects I collected that remind me of my grandmother. 

Each jar represents one year of her life.

  1. red and green embroidery floss

  2. ginger

  3. 56 colorful tumbled rocks

  4. LaCrosse thread scissors

  5. rolling hitch step knot

  6. Fuller letter opener

  7. beekeeping queen cage

  8. 10 Conair combs

  9. Clinique 02 transparent blended face powder, 02 Mocha pink blush

  10.  2 bowline knots

  11.  2 of hearts, 2 of spades, tag from new masks

  12.  160 matches

  13.  31 thumbtacks

  14.  cutflower seeds and Sage’s ceramic eyes

  15.  weaving from scraps of fabric and yarn

  16.  56 bells, 4 tiny googly eyes

  17.  burgundy alpaca fiber

  18.  3 fishing lures

  19.  Heinz apple cider vinegar

  20.  33 wooden clothespins

  21.  9 plastic hearts

  22.  33 Singer brass safety pins

  23.  2 handkerchiefs

  24.  red velvet rose from Shannon

  25.  900 Dritz pins

  26.  Touch O’Magic Permanent Press Iron-On jean patches

  27.  2 Twin Bing candy bars

  28.  peel from an orange

  29.  Karo corn syrup

  30.  turmeric

  31.  garlic bulb

  32.  2 dominos

  33.  15 sticks of spearmint sugar-free gum

  34.  gala apple

  35.  7 birch ornaments

  36.  Brer Rabbit full flavor molasses

  37.  60 marbles

  38.  lima beans

  39.  7 watches

  40.  6 sewing machine presser feet

  41.  split green peas

  42.  255 plastic gems

  43.  pink frost, love that red, classic wine, wisteria rose, i pink you’re cute

  44.  Pioneer scissors

  45.  69 clip-on earrings

  46.  Old Fashioned Whole Grain Quaker oats

  47.  star anise

  48.  Folgers ground coffee

  49.  beeswax candle

  50.  sand, burnt paper, wax, stick

  51.  Lavender, Jasmine and Valerian bath salts

  52.  90 Conair brown bobby pins

  53.  peppercorns

  54. 15 brooches

  55.  Leggs silken mist pantyhose

  56.  6 green tea bags

  57.  hemp twine

  58.  Singer sewing needles

  59.  9 thimbles

  60.  26 spools of thread

  61.  basmati rice

  62.  Dritz sewing gauge

  63.  braid from Isabela’s fabric

  64.  small fuzzy bear and snowflake

  65.  brown egg

  66.  7 sticky backed rolled of bias tape

  67.  stevedore’s knot

  68.  dishsoap

  69.  Butterick B5997 sewing pattern

  70.  Bondex Iron-On Pockets

  71.  crisco

  72.  lettuce seeds, zinnia seeds, sycamore branches

  73.  tree bark, walnut halves

  74.  pinto beans

  75.  potting soil

  76.  taut line hitch

  77.  58 screws, 15 nails, Esty’s bottle

  78.  7 Iowa rocks

  79.  bar of white soap

  80.  Dyno size 9 ball point sewing machine color coded needles

  81.  dried lavender

  82.  3 dried roses

  83.  9 dice

  84.  12 Revlon emery boards

  85.  Sturdy Brand Iron-On mending tapes

  86.  Red Star Active Dry yeast

  87.  16 brooches

  88.  2 plastic 6-in rulers

  89.  Morton coarse kosher salt

ALENE

2022 // installation

photos by Aspen DeRosa

This is an archive of my grandmother, 

Alene Ruth Lundberg.

She was born March 11, 1926 and died January 9, 2016.

She was born in Waterloo, Iowa to parents named Albert and Gertrude.

She had 5 children and 13 grandchildren.

She was a Home Economics and Business teacher for thirty years.

When I was young, she developed dementia and lived in a nursing home for most of my life. I knew a different version of her than my parents and my extended family and I don’t know how much she knew me. 

This archive is living because I am actively piecing it together. Collected from memories and oral histories, skills and values that have been passed down to me, this archive is documentation of my process of reckoning who I am and where I am from.

“Love is a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect, and trust.” 

-bell hooks