Teeny Tiny Trifecta 9 Submission

TEENY TINY TRIFECTA

Here is my submission for Teeny Tiny Trifecta 9 at Second Street Gallery. I created three collages centered around three Instax photos from Keith’s collection that came to symbolize my months-long effort to recover his belongings after his death.

The three pieces are intended to function individually and collectively. Fragments, textures, colors, words, and imagery repeat across all three collages — pieces of one work physically embedded into the others — reflecting how memory, grief, bureaucracy, documentation, and personal history became impossible to separate during this process.

1. “Warning: Contents Under Pressure”
   This collage centers on pressure: emotional pressure, legal pressure, time pressure, and the feeling of trying to hold fragile things together while systems slowly close around them. Layers of warning labels, fragmented documents, torn packaging imagery, and overlapping textures surround the Instax image. Pieces that appear here reappear in the other two collages in altered form, suggesting how tension and uncertainty carried through the entire experience.
2. “Nothing But the Dream :)”
   Built around an Instax that felt unusually hopeful and intimate, this piece contrasts warmth, humor, and creativity against the exhaustion of navigating loss administratively from thousands of miles away. Bright colors and softer visual elements are interrupted by fragments borrowed from the other collages — evidence that even hopeful memories became entangled with paperwork, timelines, emails, and unanswered questions. The smiley face in the title feels simultaneously sincere and fragile.
3. “Good Trouble”
   This collage focuses on persistence, advocacy, and the decision to continue asking questions even when doing so became uncomfortable for institutions and emotionally draining personally. Layers of correspondence, repeated motifs, and disrupted imagery connect it directly to the other two works. Elements from “Warning: Contents Under Pressure” and “Nothing But the Dream :)” physically appear here, emphasizing that grief, resistance, care, and documentation were never separate experiences — they became part of the same visual and emotional archive.

​Together, the three collages document not only Keith’s Instax collection, but the process of trying to retrieve it: the overlap between art, memory, evidence, bureaucracy, and mourning.

I had to include a bio with the submission. This is what I shared:

Leah Connor is an identical twin, mother of two, wife, runner, writer, and graphic designer. Curious, quirky, nostalgic, and endlessly inquisitive, her work blends humor and storytelling with a healthy dose of oversharing. Her personal motto is “No Choice But Action.” When not making art, she can usually be found playing Pokémon GO, solving Wordles, running races in a traffic cone costume, or watching her BirdCam.

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Teeny Tiny Trifecta
​Exhibition dates: September 4-25, 2026
Submission deadline: July 6, 2026

Second Street Gallery is currently accepting submissions for our ninth annual Teeny Tiny Trifecta Juried Exhibition and Fundraiser, to be held in the Main Gallery September 4-25, 2026. The exhibition is open to all artists, with preference given to artists living in Charlottesville and the state of Virginia. Each artist will have three works of art on display. Artists must submit 3 works of art for inclusion in the exhibition, all of which must measure 8 x 8 inches square or 8 inch diameter, including frame and matting.

Learn more about the exhibition HERE.
Apply for the exhibition by completing the Google form HERE. 
Pay the submission fee HERE.