Artist Reunites Separated Gloves
Missing a glove? Before you throw away what you deem to be its now utterly useless mate, check out www.onecoldhand.com. Jennifer Gooch — a graduate student in Carnegie Mellon's School of Art — launched a project collecting lost gloves in hopes of returning them to their owners.
"People respond differently when finding lost gloves. Some will leave them while others pick them up or throw them away," Gooch said.
Her project now provides people with additional options: they can either mail the abandoned glove directly to Gooch or leave it in a drop box that she has placed in businesses throughout Pittsburgh.
Gooch then takes pictures of the abandoned gloves and posts them. The website also uses various tags — such as places found, glove material and colors — to help users more efficiently search for their missing gloves. More than 75 gloves have been turned in and four have already been reunited with their glove-mate.
The One Cold Hand project creates a method for dealing with the conundrum of finding these lost articles by creating a humorous yet feasible solution.
"For me, collecting and saving lost gloves becomes a token for the possibility of reunion and a metaphor for the cycle of loss and gain," Gooch said.
Her efforts have not gone unnoticed. Since she launched the website, she's had coverage in hundreds of media outlets including USA Today, CNN.com and NPR's All Things Considered.
All area residents are invited to participate in collecting lost gloves. Additionally, Gooch is distributing stickers to people in search of collecting lost gloves. Participants can place the sticker where they found the glove just in case someone comes back to the area to reclaim it.
Gooch grew up in Texas where the need for gloves isn't quite what it is in Pittsburgh. After graduating from the University of Texas at Arlington, she began pursuing a master's degree in studio art at Carnegie Mellon.
Related Links: OneColdHand.com | Audio Interview | School of Art
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