House No. 170: Wedgwood House

House No. 170: Wedgwood House
acrylic on repurposed heavy cardstock
6 in. x 7 in. x 8 in.
170/365; 06/19/11

I found this heavy blue card stock in recycling, and the color immediately brought Wedgwood Jasperware to mind. I am a fan of Wedgwood, particularly the black Jasperware. I love the contrast of it. The blue Jasperware is so ubiquitous that its shade of blue is frequently called Wedgwood Blue.

For today’s house, I studied details of the Hellenic-style ornamentation used to decorate the porcelain, and then worked from my sketches to paint the house that I fabricated from the cardstock. I based the shape of the house on the Greek Revival style, with a low-pitched roof and gable-facing facade, to coordinate with the neoclassic style of ornamentation.

House No. 128: Little Red House

 

House No. 128: Little Red House

polymer clay and acrylic paint

.5 in. x 1 in. x .5 in.
128/365; 05/08/11


I like the simplicity of this tiny house and its wavy sides. It has a lot of spirit.

House No. 116: Beach House

House No. 116: Beach House
pencil, ink, white out tape, and acrylic paint on repurposed matboard
10.75 in. x 6.5 in.
116/365; 04/26/11


I found this piece of mat board on its way to the trash* in my classroom. It was almost a finished piece without my adding to it. When I looked at it, I saw a beach landscape. I just added the details to create a house from the indications of one that I already saw there.

As I tell my students, we have to see before we can create. This is a perfect example of that.

I added the graphite, the white acrylic paint, and that one white stripe on the sand.


*Honestly, some of our students don't seem to have clue as to what they are throwing away.

House No. 96: Sleeping Beauty's Castle

House No. 96: Sleeping Beauty's Castle

wood, wooden spindles, wooden spools, chipboard, acrylic paint
10 in. x 21 in. x 8 in.
096/365; 04/06/11

The fairy tale houses continue today with another tale constructed out of objects from domestic work.

Luckily for me, my mom has everything and is willing to part with it for art's sake.

Say, for example, I wanted to make a palace for Sleeping Beauty out of spinning spindles (of course), not only would my mother dig up a whole basket full, she would ask me if there is anything else that I would like to take on my way out. As if her house were a shop.

Then she would convince my dad that he can part with one of the blocks from his childhood set (that also occupied my sister and me — it is a beautiful set of wooden blocks) because a dog had already chewed on it anyway. And that is where I got the supplies for this castle.

And it is one of my favorite houses so far.

See the golden tower? That is where Sleeping beauty lies asleep.

I love these spindles. Working with them is like playing a xylophone. The soundtrack of my working with them, all colliding together, sounded like the Fossils from Camille Saint-Saëns's Carnival of the Animals.  It's such a happy sound.

House No. 88: Rapunzel's Tower

House No. 88: Rapunzel's Tower
thread spools, thimble, embroidery floss, acrylic paint
1.75 in. x 8 in. x 1.75 in
088/365; 03/29/11

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.

 

Here, I've created Rapunzel's tower and her hair out of repurposed domestic tools. Fairy tales and domesticity are typical bed fellows. Women's work, I suppose, would understandably lead to fantasy lives of princesses being rescued. The original tales seem to have additional caution against the fantasies themselves, with gory and sad endings.

The stories have limited options for women, and the female characters who attempt to break the mold are often punished for attempting to break from their molds. It's interesting that I hold these stories dear as sweet iconography while simultaneously being discomforted by the details and abhorring the lessons they teach to girls about female roles. (Though to be fair, a lot of that emotion is directed at the modern take on the stories (read: Disney) and their unrelenting and ubiquitous licensing and marketing.)

Rapunzel is a tale that features acquiescence to kidnapping, solitary confinement in a rather phallic tower (with no apparent place to bathe or relieve oneself, something that troubled me as a child), and a utilitarian fashion choice that would require a neck brace. Add to that the whole sexualization/power of hair angle (RE: Samson* and Delilah, &c.) and you have a Women's Studies dissertation in a story book.

*Interestingly, both Samson and Rapunzel's prince have their eyes gouged out after the hair cutting in their respective stories. Like I said, there is some serious essay possibilities in this story alone.

House No. 85: Nut House

House No. 85: Nut House
walnut shell, polymer clay, glue, paper, ink, acrylic paint
1.5 in. x 2 in. x 1.5 in.
085/365; 03/26/11

Welcome to the nut house. 

The werepanda was my photographer for this house. He said the bee in the last photo was necessary to show scale.

I think that the fact that the house is a walnut is pretty indicative, but the werepanda argues that the walnut could be freakishly huge. Well, the bee could be africanized and also freakishly huge, but it's not. It's a deceased honey bee from our hive, and it's a pretty standard three-stripe Italian hybrid.