Loose Threads utilizes buttons from my Pennsylvania Dutch grandmother’s collection. She was a seamstress and did alterations for people. Not wanting to waste anything, she saved all the buttons as she removed them from the article of clothing she was altering, many with the threads left hanging or tightly held in the buttonholes. Thread typically holds fabric together and keeps buttons sewn onto fabric. When threads are loose there is a weakening creating a fragile or unstable state. I was thinking of the ways in which we keep feelings held tight and what happens when they loosen up -the ways we often hold emotions in, not showing any vulnerability. Occasionally when we let loose; our human emotion is exposed along with the vulnerability. I’ve glued the buttons onto a tag, hung them on a dowel, and boxed them up neatly and tightly to represent the holding tight of emotions. The hanging threads represent the possibility of letting loose, of embracing the vulnerability and the underlying emotion. The exterior of the box is covered with pages from an old German bible, representing the limits and boundaries associated with organized religion and the part the play in holding our emotions tightly.