Lost Childhood Object

 Lost Childhood Object - Honors Studio Assignment #2

Our task for this piece was being given a random partner in which we would tell each other about a lost childhood object and be specific as possible: The color, size, weight, material, and any story attached about said object. My partner, Maggie, told me about a heart shaped barrette she lost while at school. It was pink and green (her two favorite colors) and the heart was a sewn textile material. It fell down a drain outside and Maggie described being able to see said barrette but not being able to reach it as it sat in vines. 

One example of an initial idea. 

I went through several interpretations of the story surrounding the story Maggie told me and this was evident in my brainstorming as sketches transformed my initial ideas, but the most important thing I took away was that the barrette remained visible, but unreachable, as though taunting. So I wanted to use something that would hold the barrette away from the viewer. 

When I give Maggie her lost barrette, the jar will represent a vessel in which to give Maggie's barrette back to her. The strainer lid also acts as a lid to protect it, and to me represents an alternate timeline where I fish the barrette out of the drain with a strainer like this one to give back to Maggie now. 

I wanted to transform the jar while also making sure the viewer could see through it, but not be able to reach for the barrette like Maggie's story. 

For the barrette itself, I reached the conclusion after struggling over what materials would make it that I was adamant that the structure remain true to a barrette and that it snap open and closed, so I chose a clothespin. I made  the heart to be oversized and made out of shiny pearlescent beads true to those I remember having as a kid. I used cardboard and newspaper to make the base. The barrette is wearable! 

I wanted to make sure it would snap open and closed like a real barrette.