40 days of art

26

Wacky Palace & Paper Mache

For the most part of my time in NYC I lived in a brownstone in Bed-Stuy. It was really affordable for Brooklyn but also totally falling apart. The first few years of living there I kind of just accepted that the paint was chipped and occasionally mice would pop out from the holes in the floor to die. At one point I decided that I did not have to live like that, and I could actually make my house a place that was nice to spend time in.

I asked my landlord if I could paint the walls and if she could put an actual floor down so the mice could not come in THAT WAY (they had many other ways… sneaky bastards) I then really just focused on making my home a bright, playful and welcoming space. 

I did not want to spend a lot of money, so I made lots of hand-cut vinyl clings from a roll of contact paper. I kept making more and more paper mache decorations to the point where once a technician came to my house and asked if it was a daycare (No sir it is my house, I am just a child)

I started making  paper mache when I still lived in North Carolina, but it became a full blown obsession by the end of my time in New York. My roommate Carmen would come home and there would be a  new giant slice of cherry pie hanging on the wall, or the pizza slice I had made a few months early now had a dopey looking face and braces. Home is so important to me and I want it to be peaceful and fun.