Eat Up

This was a project I had started over winter break and finished leading into this semester. I knew I wanted to move into exploring felt and sewing since I planned to use felt for my overwhelmed project. This was a good way for me to get used to the material and experiment with it. Over the break, I took a lot of time to think about how the majority of people are going to interact with my art and how to make my pieces equally as dynamic either as a photograph or as a sculpture.

I got to play around with color a lot during this project which I really enjoyed. Both in the fabrics, I choose and also with the lighting. Again in this piece, there is a parodying of real-life things, this time cooking tools and food instead of a product to address an issue I and many others face in their everyday.

This piece really manifested from a frustration of an imbalance in my own life. An observation that many young men in my family and in my life don’t know how to cook, and because of that it’s been put on me and the other women in my life to be the ones to cook any and all food. Cooking used to be something I enjoyed, a way to show my care for those around me. But the obligation and responsibility to have to shop for, meal prep, cook, and clean up after for every meal really corrupted it for me. It was not the amount of work but the fact that the young men in my life had no interest or attempt to learn or help.

It made me want to look at them and ask if they really knew what they were asking me when asking me “what’s for dinner?”. That though they never have said, “a women’s place is in the kitchen” and if you asked them they would probably say it’s an outdated way of thinking. Their refusal to learn how and to avoid learning at all costs essentially says that.

I no longer cook for my family. We eat out instead or my mom cooks. Eat Up was a place for me to put this frustration. This corrupting of something I used to love. I hope someday it can be something that I can love again. Something that’s done together in order to take care of each other and ourselves.

Pan progression:

Pot Progression:

Final Photos: