Crowd-sourcing a memory (lost cat)
Remember the Sky: ProjectArt Residency Exhibition, MoCA, 2022
For my residency culminating project I asked volunteers of all ages to make a drawing of an object (that I used to have but had since lost) solely based on my description of it.
The key instructions (suggestions) were to not stress or worry about it being correct or even a good drawing and to not spend too much time doing it.
THE DESCRIPTION READ:
(lost cat) MEMORY OF A LOST OBJECT
When I was little I had this small stuffed animal – a black & white Cat – except it was made completely out of yarn so there wasn’t any stuffing. It wasn’t crocheted or knit but it was a series of connected yarn pompom balls so it was kind of like a yarn cylinder and the yarn stuck out like the yarn of a pompom ball sticks out.
Though I lost it before I could ever figure out how it was really made, it seems there was one pompom for a head (maybe 3”?) and 4 continuous lengths of tied-together pompom balls (maybe each were about 8” long) stacked and tied together to create the shape of a laying down cat – similar to the pose of the Sphynx (next to the pyramids in Egypt) or the cats that look like loaves of bread with a head and tail.
Three of the 8” lengths of connected pompoms were all black and were stacked – 2 on the bottom and one on top, like 3 hot dogs stacked on top of each other or a prism – and this created the body of the cat. These stacked three lengths were tied at either end but not attached in the middle at all.
The fourth length of pompom was attached at one end of the stacked body and became the tail. This tail section was black with just a little bit of white at the end of the tail. (There may have been a little bit of white at the front end of the bottom two lengths of pompoms that made it look like white paws on a black cat.)
The head was a separate black pompon tied to the top of the 3 stacked lengths of the body, opposite the tail. The head had little black and white (or pink?) triangle felt ears glued onto the yarn and also very simple felt eyes and nose also glued on.
Because the 3 lengths of the body and legs were only connected on either end, it was open in the middle and I would slip my hand through it and often wear it around like a bracelet and twist my arm to make the head and tail twirl around. I liked it because of this but the yarn was not particularly cozy so I didn’t like it because of that.
I think I got this from the hospital after I got my tonsils out when I was five. Volunteers made stuffed dolls and animals to give out to the kids in the hospital and the aides would roll them around in a wagon and hand them out.