Sift Through Grace Baldwin’s Giant Junk Drawer Filled with Nostalgia — Colossal

We all have one, or at least some version of it: the junk drawer. Mine is a jumble of charging cables, old nails, a lanyard, matchbooks, a few key rings, scissors, an expired bottle of vitamins, every Allen wrench from every IKEA shelf I ever assembled, a few rubber bands, and frankly, who knows what else at this point. For artist Grace Baldwin, the junk drawer is a repository of memories and nostalgia, where common items end up in a place that’s simultaneously accessible and out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Lately, she’s been constructing a lifelike one at a monumental scale, drawer and all.

“I typically create giant nostalgic but functional pieces, mostly through woodworking,” Baldwin tells Colossal. “I’ve been trying to branch out and utilize other materials more often and expand my creative ability. This project has given me the ability to do exactly that.” A Pink Pearl eraser is suitably smudged, a Blockbuster Video membership card sits in a plastic sleeve, and a half-used roll of Tums rolls around amid a slew of other realistic objects.

Baldwin began with inspiration from her own junk drawer. As she shared her progress on social media, viewers began sharing random objects hiding in theirs, and it morphed into something of a virtual collaboration. “A lot of the suggestions overlapped with my original list, which was a fun reminder that junk drawers are surprisingly universal.”

The first object Baldwin created was a giant pair of corded earbuds, and she began adding a few items each day. The relatability of the concept really speaks to her, not only because the objects are common and recognizable but because they are so lifelike, even at a blown-up scale. The artist credits the project with changing her outlook on making, material experimentation, and the power of detail. “At this point, I plan to keep adding things until it feels right,” she says.

In addition to working on some larger objects to add so that the remaining space can be filled with more small items, she’s thinking about what comes next. “I really am hoping to find somewhere to display it once it is finished,” she says. “Maybe even leaving the possibility of the items remaining loose in it so that they can be rummaged through. I think there will be so many fun details to find hidden in the layers of ‘junk.’”

Follow Baldwin’s piece-by-piece progress on Instagram.