Elsewhere was quite an experience. When first being told about this place I imagined a room with some random toys. To my surprise I was completely wrong. This place is overflowing with anything that you can think of. If you can imagine it, they have it. But good luck finding it. Today this place is a museum but originally was a thrift store for Greensboro. The owner of the thrift store decided one day that she was going to stop selling the items and instead continue to collect and increase her collection. Today Elsewhere is a museum, ran by the grandson of the original owner, where artists come in and create exhibits by rearranging and organizing the objects that they find. The motto of Elsewhere is "nothing comes in and nothing leaves."
I still find myself wondering how in the world one person could collect so much junk. Every time I am there I find something that I had as a child. This can be really fun. Our first assignment of our class time at Elsewhere was to go around only the first level and find five objects that we would be interested in drawing. We were to write our name on a sticky note and place it on the object. By doing this we became part of the museum. Something that would never leave. The first five drawings are this assignment. In order they include a chandelier, high heel shoe, a floor cushion, a jack-o-lantern cone, and a Cinderella toy.
Our second assignment was to venture out on the first floor again and define a space which we wanted to claim. We marked this off on the floor with duck tape. This became our space for the next few class periods. After defining our space we were called into the other room and told we had three minutes to list as many things that we recalled seeing in our area. I found this tougher than it really seemed. As you can see above I was not too successful. Once we were finished with this we were told to draw one of the things that we listed. I chose to draw this pretty blue umbrella that had white flowers on it. After this we were given the rest of our class periods and any our free time to draw the space that we claimed. The remaining drawings above a of my chosen space. I chose to focus on the desk because it had so many interesting objects.
Something that I did not fully understand and still don't understand about Elsewhere is the division of the first floor. Certain areas are divided up to become different aspects that make up a functioning community. Although I cannot remember them all certain ones that stick out in my mind include, the general store, the restaurant, and a travel center. I believe the space that I chose was the travel center because certain items were brought to this desk that had a similar theme. Most of the items had something to do with certain tourist locations. These items were post cards, toys, etc. To tell you the truth I am still clueless on the reason why the area was organized the way it was. My favorite aspect about this space was the many umbrellas place over head to create a sense of shelter. Several items has something to do with E.T. and then there was a box of random toys which some were dogs. There were many books and one random T.V. that had a note on it that said "Buy n' Sell". Although there is small random categories of objects I still think the main category has something to do with travel.
I have to admit some days I hated going to Elsewhere and some days I truly enjoyed it. I think what frustrated me the most was the large abundance of randomness. Some days it was so overwhelming. Most days I really enjoyed going to my space and drawing the things I saw. Overall I was pleased with my space. I definitely was not an easy space to depict through drawing. I would recommend everyone to at least experience Elsewhere once because you never know what you will find in there. You most likely will find something from your childhood that will bring back good memories.
