---
title: "The eraser is fake. The smudge is real."
locale: "en"
url: "https://irz.fr/en/articles/grace-baldwin-junk-drawer-en"
markdown_url: "https://irz.fr/en/articles/grace-baldwin-junk-drawer-en.md"
category: "creative"
tags: ["art", "sculpture", "Grace-Baldwin", "woodworking", "nostalgia", "pop-art"]
published_at: "2026-08-24T20:30:00.000Z"
author: "Léa Perrin"
translation: "https://irz.fr/fr/articles/grace-baldwin-tiroir-bazar-geant-fr.md"
---

# The eraser is fake. The smudge is real.

Grace Baldwin is building a monumental junk drawer filled with fake objects worn like real ones. The series grows a few objects a day, with an inventory partly crowdsourced from her audience.

Grace Baldwin lay down in a junk drawer. A real one: a wood frame painted green, a metal pull on the front, casters under the bottom, deep enough to hold an entire person. Inside sits a smudged Pink Pearl eraser, a Blockbuster membership card in a plastic sleeve, a half-used roll of Tums, orange-handled scissors, keys, a dollar bill, sauce packets. Every one of those objects is fake. Baldwin made them herself, one by one, at the scale of the drawer.[1](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2026/08/grace-baldwin-giant-junk-drawer-sculpture/)

The piece is not finished, and that is part of the design. She adds a few objects a day and plans to keep going "until it feels right".[1](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2026/08/grace-baldwin-giant-junk-drawer-sculpture/) The "Giant Junk Drawer" series is being built in public, episode by episode, on an Instagram account followed by more than half a million people.[2](https://www.instagram.com/grace.of.spades722/) On July 28 she announced that the container finally existed: "Junk Drawer Series finally has a drawer to home everything", a post that passed 100,000 likes.[2](https://www.instagram.com/grace.of.spades722/)

> **The series builds in public**
> - Part 5: the objects pile up.: July 25
> - The drawer structure is done.: July 28
> - Colossal tells the story, piece still unfinished.: Aug 20
> - A few objects added every day.: Late Aug
> Timeline reconstructed from the artist's posts and Colossal's coverage.

## Sentimental junk

The junk drawer is the least pretentious archive in a house. Nothing in it was chosen to be looked at: cables whose device is long gone, keys without a lock, the battery kept "just in case". Baldwin started from her own drawer to write the list, then shared her progress online. Comments poured in, everyone offering the object they would find in theirs, and the list grew into a remote collaboration. "A lot of the suggestions overlapped with my original list, which was a fun reminder that junk drawers are surprisingly universal", she says.[1](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2026/08/grace-baldwin-giant-junk-drawer-sculpture/)

That overlap deserves a second look. Two people who have never met can describe the contents of a drawer they have never opened. The claim floats around every nostalgia piece without ever being demonstrated; here it comes out of an informal count between an artist and her audience.

> Illustration: Overhead view of the giant junk drawer filled with handmade objects: scissors, a Pink Pearl eraser, a ketchup packet, a bandage box, keys, a lighter. The inventory mixes recognizable brands with anonymous objects, all rebuilt at the scale of the furniture. Credit: [Grace Baldwin, via Colossal](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2026/08/grace-baldwin-giant-junk-drawer-sculpture/).

## The penny test

The first object she made was a giant pair of corded earbuds.[1](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2026/08/grace-baldwin-giant-junk-drawer-sculpture/) Since then, every addition faces the same exam: comparison with the real thing. Baldwin photographs her sculpted pennies next to an actual coin, her Duracell battery next to a real AA, her sneakers in frame as the final reference.[1](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2026/08/grace-baldwin-giant-junk-drawer-sculpture/) The comparison photo is part of the work, not just its promotion: that is where the scale becomes readable.

> Illustration: Two giant sculpted pennies with a green patina, next to a real one-cent coin held between fingers. The comparison with the real coin is part of the protocol: scale reads from the photo, not from a spec sheet. Credit: [Grace Baldwin, via Colossal](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2026/08/grace-baldwin-giant-junk-drawer-sculpture/).

And scale changes what you look at. Nobody studies a 1994 penny; enlarged, its verdigris becomes a sculptural decision and its engraving a relief exercise. The banality of the original does not excuse sloppiness in the copy, it demands precision: everyone knows what a penny looks like, so everyone can judge the fake.

## Wear is the material

Baldwin comes from woodworking. "I typically create giant nostalgic but functional pieces, mostly through woodworking", she explains. This project is her testing ground for "other materials" and for widening her practice.[1](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2026/08/grace-baldwin-giant-junk-drawer-sculpture/) The drawer itself remains a woodworker's object, with visible boards and green paint. The objects demand something else: a sleeve has to stay transparent, a sauce packet has to keep its crease, a penny has to carry its patina. Her Linktree lists a promo code for Alumilite, a maker of casting resins and mold-making materials,[4](https://linktr.ee/graceofspadesart) plausibly how certain shapes get reproduced, although she does not detail the recipe for each piece.

What the photos confirm is that wear is the real material. The eraser is smudged, the Blockbuster card sits in its sleeve, the Tums roll is half used. Nothing is new, because nothing in a junk drawer is new. Without that detail the whole thing would look like an ad set; with it, you would swear each object has actually been used and simply landed in a piece of furniture far too big for it.

> Illustration: A giant painted Duracell battery next to a real AA battery and red sneakers on the studio floor. The Duracell battery photographed with the real AA and a pair of sneakers as the scale reference. Credit: [Grace Baldwin, via Colossal](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2026/08/grace-baldwin-giant-junk-drawer-sculpture/).

## Banal, on purpose

The giant drawer did not come from nowhere. Baldwin already built functional pop-art furniture modeled on 1990s and 2000s packaging: a Bubble Tape end table that opens like the real dispenser, a Game Boy Color desk, a Gushers table with its coasters, an Ouch! medicine cabinet, a Nerds chess set.[3](https://www.lifeandstylemag.com/posts/this-functional-art-has-the-internet-feeling-nostalgic) Her audience took off in early 2026, and she sells some pieces privately or on eBay.[3](https://www.lifeandstylemag.com/posts/this-functional-art-has-the-internet-feeling-nostalgic)

In that trajectory, the junk drawer is a logical move. Until now she enlarged branded products, whose logos and colors did part of the recognition work. Here the centerpiece is furniture, not a product: the place where worthless things accumulate, and the first piece in her catalog whose announced function is to be rummaged through. Baldwin hopes to exhibit it one day with the objects left loose so people can actually dig through the content, counting on "so many fun details to find hidden in the layers of 'junk'".[1](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2026/08/grace-baldwin-giant-junk-drawer-sculpture/)

One question remains, and it is about size: when do you stop? "Until it feels right" is an honest finishing criterion for a piece with no brief. Until that verdict, the drawer keeps filling up, a few objects a day, in front of its audience.[1](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2026/08/grace-baldwin-giant-junk-drawer-sculpture/)

## References

1. [Colossal, Sift Through Grace Baldwin's Giant Junk Drawer Filled with Nostalgia, August 20, 2026](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2026/08/grace-baldwin-giant-junk-drawer-sculpture/)
2. [Grace Baldwin (@grace.of.spades722), Instagram, Giant Junk Drawer series](https://www.instagram.com/grace.of.spades722/)
3. [Life & Style, This Artist Is Turning '90s Childhood Memories Into Furniture You Can Actually Use, February 4, 2026](https://www.lifeandstylemag.com/posts/this-functional-art-has-the-internet-feeling-nostalgic)
4. [Grace of Spades, official Linktree](https://linktr.ee/graceofspadesart)