Robert Fontenot. Recycle LACMA

On January 14th, 2009 the Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced that it was deaccessioning more than 100 items from its costumes and textiles collection. Once carefully collected, catalogued, and cared for, these items have now been cast back out in to the world. What will happen to them? Like any other useless item, they will need to be recycled or disposed of.

Recycle LACMA is a project of Los Angeles-based artist Robert Fontenot. At three separate auctions he purchased over 50 items deaccessioned by LACMA and is now trying to find new uses for these otherwise unwanted items.

A damaged pair of boxing gloves were disassembled. Using the pieces as patterns, a new set of pieces were cut from the corduroy. Each glove required four pieces: one for the back of the wrist, one for the back of the hand, one for the palm side of the hand, and one for the palm side of the thumb. The pieces for the back of the hand and the back of the wrist were machine-sewn together. The pieces for the palm side of the hand and the palm side of the thumb were also machine-sewn together, and a strip of the hounds tooth check fabric was machine-sewn on top of the seam. To the inside of the palm piece, a piece of white fabric from the original glove was sewn along two lines, leaving a channel into which a tubular piece of foam from the original glove (used as a grip when the wearer makes a fist), was inserted. Next, a final piece of fabric from the original glove was attached to form the pocket into which the hand would be inserted. The original fiber stuffing from the gloves was sandwiched between the new front and back pieces and these were hand-sewn together. The openings of the gloves, at the wrists, were bound with strips of the hounds tooth check fabric, and tabs of the same fabric, along with the metal buckles from the garment, were attached to the wrists to allow for the tightening and securing of the gloves. The piece of pocket fabric with the RKO PROPERTY stamp has been appliquéd to the outside wrist of the right hand glove. A blank piece of fabric from the same pocket has been appliquéd to the outside wrist of the left hand glove.The accession number has been embroidered onto two pieces of fabric from the garment’s pockets, and these have been appliquéd to the wrists of the gloves.