Wearable Art
In a recent Every Day Art Project we took inspiration from the exhibition It’s Me, Eloise: The Voice of Kay Thompson and the Art of Hilary Knight and explored paper sculpting in order to create our own wearable art. It isn’t often you get to wear your creative experiments, so for this project we also introduced an interactive display where guests could remove cardboard frames from the wall to capture photos of themselves in their collaged creations.
In developing this project, we were interested in how Eloise turns everyday objects, such as tissue boxes and egg cups, into imaginative accessories. We wanted to explore how we could invent our own artful items to wear using readily available materials. We provided a range of collage papers and long strips of construction paper in Eloise-inspired shades of reds and pinks as well as gray, black and white. Many of the collage papers were recycled from previous Art Studio projects. It is always interesting to limit color choices in order to focus on what can be achieved with a variety of tones within a few colors.
Guests worked both independently and together as they experimented with paper cutting and attachment techniques using scissors, glue sticks and masking tape. Many patterned and constructed paper crowns, hats, bracelets, ties, watches and scarves were made and worn around the museum.
We thought guests might want to take photos of their creations so we provided frames for this purpose. Made from recycled mat board frames, we added puffy paint, acrylics, tissue paper and wood-grain contact paper to their surfaces to create a wide variety of frames to choose from.
We attached the frames to our display wall using adhesive Velcro strips allowing guests to take them down and replace them easily.
They provided a fun way to document our wearable art and share with others.
The frames have since come down from the wall to make way for the installation of our next Every Day Art Project, but we have held onto them knowing that they will make a return to the Art Studio soon!
