Knee Deep in Flowers

Creator

Callagh Mays, Ursinus College

Preview

Student Exhibition Year

2023

Description

Metal box filled with artificial flowers, grass and mushrooms. Presented as part of the 2023 Annual Student Exhibit in the Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College.

Artist Statement

I make boxes of dreams and stories. I am influenced by my childhood, my dreams, and the stories I have heard. Growing up, my grandmother, who my siblings and I called Grandy, had an old, run-down dollhouse. The house was beautifully painted, white with a dark green-black roof and a red porch, and decorated with painted green vines going all the way up the walls. Whenever we went to visit Grandy we got to play with this house. However, the toy furniture and dolls we used were not consistent with the Victorian cottage aesthetic. The dolls we played with were from 90s plastic doll sets or the dollar store–the bright pink and purple ones that would snap at any second. I loved playing with these dolls and dollhouses growing up; my sister and I would make rooms in my bookcases and in drawers when I couldn’t use a dollhouse. My reference to memories and stories like these is liminal and obituary, signs of grieving a childlike past that I can never go back to. I find this loss of time macabre and unsettling.

I scavenge and modify repurposed objects to create unique pieces, props that fit into the story of each scene and each box. All of them are different, but that is precisely how they work together. You might drink a potion or eat a cookie and suddenly be too big or small for the box, but you are seeing them exactly how I want you to see them.

Rights Statement

Copyright of the underlying work is held by the artist. The digital image presented here is for educational purposes only and is not for commercial use.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.