Art through Childhood and Play
I am a sculptor and a big hands-on learner. I am someone who benefits from using a physical medium to learn a new topic or skill, pertaining to art or not. As a future educator, I’ve learned how to create hands-on learning experiences, which strengthen motor learning and sensory input. Engaging children in explorative artistic opportunities benefits creative thinking and problem-solving. As a young adult, themes of childhood resonate strongly with me. The fear of growing up and losing the security you had as a child, then having to enter the adult world, where you’re expected to grow out of play and be serious. As I have grown up, I still tend to have those connections with my childhood and tend to reminisce on the past. It brings me comfort and a glimpse of that security I once had. As life gets harder to face as I grow up, my work is a reminder that you can be playful as an adult and to relive your childhood if it holds meaning to you. My work explores the whimsy of nostalgie due to the inevitable loss of childhood.
The theme of escaping time and loss is especially prevalent in these two pieces. The unwound VHS tape is intended to represent a lifespan. This VHS tape also plays on the playful yet taboo act of ripping out the tape inside, an urge many children, including myself, had. As the tape has been unwound and ripped out, it cannot be rewound. Birthday Cakes represents three cakes for three big stages in development: infancy-toddlerhood, childhood, and young adulthood. Birthday cakes are one of the biggest symbols of a birthday, making it a significant representation of time passing.
Engaging in play through art is also followed through in the artistic process itself. These hands have no set result, just the intention of melting wax on each hand and accepting the unpredictability of this open-ended activity.
Wire, plaster gauze, tea bag stain, metal wagon
Scale is a key trait in some of my works. The opposing scales of a large tooth, something naturally tiny, and a small wagon, an object often characterized as big, contrast with each other. It channels humor and irony into the piece, aiding others in the exhibition.
Cardboard tubes, acrylic, tape
A giant version of a popular children’s art medium. They’re fun and play on scale, making the audience feel like they’re tiny.
Pill bottles, hot glue, assorted trinkets
Switching from large to tiny, Take on each day features a variety of small toy-like trinkets. With the loss of childhood as we grow up, nostalgia and attachment to the past grows, needing a supplemental dose of childlike wonder to support you through the transition into adulthood and during that period.
I find inspiration in sculptor Robert Gober, and his knack for connecting the real and the strange into a piece of artwork that is evocative and unsettling in an interesting way. It challenges the artist and audience to think and make connections.
Chair, endulges in the play of placing stickers on a chair. Growing up, I was told to not put my stickers all of over my door, chair, desk, etc. That impulsive feeling I had was dismissed by order and rules. Chair allows audience members to endulge in the play and be apart of the artistic process. I was fortunate enough to have my kid sister, who is pictured, at the exhibition reception, who engaged majority of her time on the rug placing stickers down. Play is often characterized as an activity that is free and playful. The rug Chair resides on is an alphabet rug given to me by my mother, who teaches kindergarten. The rug acts as a vessel to serve the Chair in a play designated area. On the rug also reside various toys, baby dolls, and construction toys, and colored pencils and paper for audience members to draw on if they so please. This rug section of play allowed audience participation, with it being on a play rug and an inviting sign, which in turn closes off the other works, which remain on pedestals or separate from the rug area. Some things are to be looked at and not touched; a phrase I heard growing up.
As I’ve created this portfolio, I’ve heavily channeled important pieces to my identity and my personal experiences, and professional experiences in my future career as an educator. Child development and play are an integral part of growth and development. My experiences with play and toys shaped my identity, which fulfills me with nostalgia and fuels my creative processes. As a whole, my work is a vessel for me to share my experience with nostalgia and play with audience members to engage them with, and allow them to sympathize with their inner child.
