When Zoe Leonard first sewed back together the rinds of oranges that she had eaten, she was not consciously producing art. Leonard associated her initial impulse to reconstruct the peels with her experience of traveling in India where she gained a heightened appreciation for extending the useful life of even the smallest objects. Soon after, Leonard turned to the solitary, repetitive act of stitching together fruit peels as a form of meditation. At the time, she was mourning the loss of fellow artist David Wojnarowicz (1954–1992), a dear friend who had died of AIDS. Looking back, the artist considered the sewn peels a physical manifestation of her personal healing. Leonard has compared the futile act of repairing the fruit peels with attempts to weave together the memories of a lost loved one. In time, both the peels and the memories will disintegrate. The fruit peels might also be seen as a testament to natural life cycles, with matter—ranging from plants to flesh—moving from a state of maturation to one of decay. In this way, Leonard’s piece speaks to the still life tradition, known as vanitas, in which paintings were filled with melting candles, fading flowers, and rotting fruit—all symbols of the transience of life. Says Leonard, “The very essence of the piece is to decompose.”