Supercrawl 2012: Papier Maché Necklace

A giant blobby necklace made of papier machéd balloons is probably not what you would expect to see on my blog. Neither the necklace nor the presentation are exceptional. The moment I saw the necklace I was reminded of a papier maché igloo that I made in Kindergarten and it brought back a flood of good memories. Unlike the above necklace, some of whose beads look soft and sunken, my igloo was sturdy. With another classmate, I covered a balloon with strips of paste covered newspaper, followed up with a layer of white paper towel. I can still remember the feel of the warm paste as I squeegeed the excess from the torn paper strip with my index and middle fingers before layering it onto the balloon. Once the papier machéd balloon was firm and dry, our teacher cut it in half, and cut a small half circle for the igloo door. Then I was free to draw pencil lines on my igloo to represent the snow bricks. Shortly after I made the igloo, my mom made a purple plaid dress coat with a matching hat for me. My ever practical mom appropriated my igloo to become the hat form. When I outgrew the hat and coat, they, along with my igloo, were given to another young girl. I still think about that igloo.

Reflecting on childhood crafts and my anxiety about an upcoming solo show, I was reminded of this Sheryl Crow quote:

"I called [Bob Dylan]. ... I said, "I am totally wigged out and I don't know what I am supposed to be doing, and I've got a lot of pressure to incorporate what's going on." He said, "Go back to your roots. Take out the albums that you loved and play those songs. Get your band together and rehearse those songs, and then you will start writing." And that's what I did." – Sheryl Crow, Rolling Stone, October 31, 2002.

Maybe it's time that I went back to my roots and played with papier maché once again.