kindergarden - A Sophomore Review Project
This sculpture is an exploration of my childhood artwork and memories. In kindergarten, my main goal was to create a feeling of playfulness as well as nostalgia. I imagine this sculpture being an interactive experience for viewers to sit in, play with dolls, and revisit their childhood memories.
What is a "Sophomore Review"?
At the end of their second year, art students at the University of Michigan present their work before a committee of three faculty members. In preparation for the sophomore review, students take Second Year Studio, a course that encourages reflection on their creative development to date and allows time to create new work for their review.
Why focus on childhood artwork?
While at my family's home, I discovered a box of my childhood drawings and art projects from kindergarten. Immediately, I was inspired by the flowers, people, and creatures created by my younger self and wanted to visualize my feelings of nostalgia and joy in this process.
inspiration & process
Inspiring Artists
I researched artists including Yayoi Kusama, Eugenia Loli, and Mica Angela Hendricks, whose work consists of childhood themes, collages, and mixed media. Yayoi Kusama's use of saturated colors, patterns, mixed media, and inspiration from her childhood memories particularly stood out to me as factors I would like to include in my project.
To the left, there are images of my childhood drawings that were the main sources of my collage, the house, and dolls.
Iteration 1
My first iteration is comprised of the flowers and nature photoshopped into a large field with my present self walking down a path. I was especially trying to show how it felt to look through my past artwork and reconnect with my childhood self. This image carried on to be the main imagery in the final iteration.
Iteration 2
For this iteration, I traced the flowers, house, trees, and girl drawings from above to cut on paper using a Cricut machine. I then drew the same colors on the cut-outs and glued the house together. For this iteration, I was experimenting with the idea of creating a sculpture and the concept of creating a toy/dollhouse that a child or adult could play with.
Final Work/Reflection
For the final iteration, I chose to incorporate the visuals of iteration 1 and the sculpture/toy concept from iteration 2. I chose to enlarge the final piece so that it would be an immersive experience of entering a colorful, childhood-inspired space.
The skeletal structure is made from cardboard with thick white paper cut and attached to the front of the house using wood glue. The collage is enlarged and printed on paper, then cut to fit the inside of the house. A felt "grass" carpet was cut to a quarter of a circle and has cutouts of flowers and standing flowers. The structure is reinforced using a fishing line that attaches to either side of the roof. The dolls are inspired by various female figures in my childhood drawings and are sewn from muslin, scrap fabric, yarn, and drawn on with marker.
I found this project to be very enlightening on how to go through research, multiple iterations, and critique to come to a final piece. While I am happy with the end result, I have learned a lot about how to improve my process in the future. Specifically, it would have been more sturdy to use wood rather than cardboard, and I would like to take better process pictures in the future to show how my work develops. I am excited to work on more projects in the future and grow my artistic talents and critical thinking further.
