All Gems: Emily Snedden Yates

December 2016 - January 2017On view Dec. 2nd 2016– Jan 29th, 2017Opening Reception First Friday, Dec. 2nd, 6pm – 10pm  Caked with leaves, the first glove she found seemed to wave pathetically at her from the ground. It begged for a high five or some validation it was not yet garbage. Being separated from its partner and owner, it needed rescue.She picked it up feeling sorry for it. Emily Snedden Yates and PRACTICE invite you to explore the artist’s collection of lost gloves while also investigating the psychology of collections and their relationship to identity. From brown paper bags to belly-button lint, chances are you collect something.Motivations to amass particular objects range from monetary to memorialization. The ritual of collecting may provide a sense of security or a definition of one’s self. A person may be deemed "The Flamingo Lady" and are continually gifted pink birds, welcomed or otherwise. Over the course of the exhibition, All Gems, Snedden Yates will be conducting interviews in an effort to document others’ collections and how they relate to their owners. Based on these conversations, Snedden Yates will curate a collection of collections; inviting gallery goers to display their secret and not-so- secret caches in January 2017.Emily Snedden Yates, received her BFA from The Rhode Island School of Design in 2005 and her MFA from Tyler School of Art in 2007. Snedden Yates, Special Assistant to the Director of The Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, facilitates art projects and exhibits. She helped create Through the Weeping Glass, a short film, with Stephen and Timothy Quay.The Mütter Museum houses a historical medical collection. A group of over 2000 swallowed objects is a favorite of Snedden Yates’ for its variety in material and persnickety cataloging. Though the pieces have little relation to one another other than their size and proximity to a gaping mouth, dentures, safety pins, food particles, jewelry, and toys extracted from patient’s throats are archived together. Unique groupings like this at the Mütter Museum are medically necessary and strangely artistic -- an influential concept in Snedden Yates’ work.