Pasture
Puff
2021. Porcelain, glaze, underglaze.
12" x 5" x 18"
2022 NCECA Student Juried Exhibition, Merit Award
In Western culture, our earliest forms of socialization are rooted in the role-playing of feminine and masculine expectations. I often relive an early memory. I had wanted to play with my dad’s childhood toy barn instead of Grandma’s heavily doilied dollhouse. I can feel Grandma’s frustration from the other room. Or was it the argument between my parents afterward where there was a charge in the air? When the contention settled, I got to play with neither. An activity like play, which should be free and undefined, ends up entrenched in gender roles. While I could not fully understand the traditions, hopes, and dreams that my family had placed on me, I did understand that something about it felt ill-fitting.
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The barn and dollhouse were passed down to me a few years ago. I only had space for one. When the two toys had become mine, I stood before them as they sat on my living room floor, somehow perceiving me. I could not outrun the pangs of guilt around not loving the dollhouse as a child. Later that same week, I carried that barn to an antique store. Gripping it so tightly, it barely left my hands when it was time to make the sale. Today that dollhouse sits smugly overlooking the apartment from its perch on the china cabinet. It reminds me of Grandma’s mirrors and how she would set them up around the house to keep an eye on me from every room. As she it watches me, I realize I have yet to fully understand the guilt I still carry from pushing away girl.
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In my artwork, “Pasture Puff,” I grapple with the tug-of-war I have with that guilt. A frowning girl sits atop a chunky pony while being hugged by a pastel rainbow. It is sculpted from a vintage photograph of a girl all dolled up, grinning ear to ear in bliss, while on vacation at a dude ranch. I spent days in the studio watching her as I worked. I wished those joys were familiar to me. I remember pushing away, with deep shame, everything that felt girly and indulgent. The rainbow is built in reference to the Italian architect, Ettore Sottsass’, Ultrafragola mirror. Famed as the internet’s ultimate selfie mirror, it became the lens through which people curate themselves to the world on social media. In the making process, I reflected on my want to reframe my memories to match those of the little girls who could fit within the hopes and dreams the world had for them.