Bringing Back A Piece Of The Past At Lost & Find On Flatbush Avenue

It’s been one of the coldest winters Brooklyn has seen, but on most Tuesday evenings and Saturday afternoons since mid-December, you could still find Hannah Rawe, bundled up in coveralls and hunched over a space heater, more or less right out on the sidewalk of Flatbush Avenue. Some days, the weather kept her home. But mostly she’s been there in her handmade booth, tinkering away while a stream of pedestrians headed to or from the B/Q subway station passed by.

“I like being here because I get to see people taking notice,” she says of her work. “It’s fun. But it’s really easy to miss somehow. It’s a strange phenomenon.”

What she’s up to, what you may well have walked by daily without picking up on it, is Lost & Find, an art project that reconnects people to the things they’ve lost — in a way. She’s set up a hand-made display, which doubles as her counter, booth, on-site workspace, and more, at the outer edge of Giti Fashion at 306 Flatbush Avenue, an everything shop that has an umbrella for you when it’s raining and can change your watch battery, and which has been operating in this space for 34 years.

For Rawe, a Bushwick resident who grew up in Park Slope and whose family still lives here, this kind of space is part of what spurred the idea for the project, in which she’s crafting tiny, iconic sculptures and wearable brass versions of items people have lost, so they can get them back.

“I’ve always really loved those little key shops, little locksmith places that are only about a foot wider than a door, and I was vaguely interested as renting one, either as an art project or as a shop space, temporarily, but rents are insane and so that was unaffordable,” she explains. “But I like them as strange community hubs — they’re places that people go into all the time, from the same neighborhood but they don’t know each other, they interact for this service, they make keys, and change watch batteries. I like the idea of having a necessary service, but also something maybe more goofy. Like a personal service of trinkets or charms.”

With a degree and some professional background in sculpture and drawing, Rawe decided to launch Lost & Find after thinking about something we all might be familiar with — what ever happened to that T-shirt I used to wear all the time?

“At some point I made a list of things that I used to have and I really don’t know where they went, like favorite T-shirts,” she says, pointing to a tiny clay version she has on display at the shop of one she had that disappeared. “I wore it all the time, but I don’t know what happened to it.

“So I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if I had a slew of small versions of lots of things that I used to have?” she continues, highlighting a small dog cameo also on display, modeled after her old pal Bobby, who recently passed away. “I like the idea of memorializing things. I’ve always liked mourning jewelry, and that weird hair jewelry, Victorian stuff. It’s a talisman, a token, an amulet.”

Though it’s been cold, some people have stopped to see what’s happening here, and as part of the project, she’s keeping track of the conversations she has with people about the things they’ve lost — like the tale of Trufelo, a cat who isn’t lost, “but frequently scares his owner that he might be by going out to wander and not returning for great lengths of time,” or Cisco’s lost sneaker.

“People seem into it, in theory,” Rawe says. “I think when it gets warmer people will have a little more excitement about hanging out for a minute and taking it in. But it’s been interesting seeing the type of people who have taken interest, too — it’s been a mix of ages and ethnicities and styles, it’s cool.”

Being in this spot, where Giti Fashion owner Bab happily allowed her to set up shop (when asked what he’s ever lost, Bab says what’s more important is what he’s found in Rawe, “my new daughter!”), has been an interesting part of the project, as well. She’ll stay through some of the warm weather, but says this project is just temporary — but it will hopefully have some kind of lasting impact.

“This corner used to be more unique than it is currently,” she says, arm sweeping around to the Starbucks, the Verizon store, the American Apparel. “I used to come up the block and get these weird dolls that this woman made, and there was a dress shop that my friend and I would get dress-up clothes at — it was full of a lot more quirky spots. I kind of miss that, and I’m trying to keep it alive a little bit.”

Visit Lost & Find at the front of Giti Fashion, 306 Flatbush Avenue, on the corner of 7th Avenue, during office hours on Tuesdays from 6-9pm and Saturdays from 1-5pm. Or stop by for the opening party on Saturday, April 18!