The making of “Mannequin cream: Do you see color?”
Mannequin cream: Do you see color?
My creative process often starts with me going through the stash of odds and ends I’ve collected and pulling out a few materials that catch my interest at that time. I combine these materials in different ways until something clicks and a cohesive piece starts to take shape. In this case, I had wanted to use my collection of small, colorful carpet samples that I had previously cut from their paper cards. I had gotten these samples from a reuse event years before along with the paint swatches and curtain fabric samples also included in this piece.
For context, I made this piece in the summer of 2020, right in the midst of covid closures and nationwide protests in response to the murder of George Floyd. That summer, race was a topic of public discourse, with many people calling out the ever-persistent racism in the U.S., many people seemingly learning about race and racism for the first time, and also many people wishing the topic would simply go away, saying that we’re past racism or that they “don’t see color.”
I don’t think I was intending to make a piece of art about race, but as I started to layer materials, something about the rainbow of colors in the carpet samples and the fact that one of the off-white colors on one paint swatch was called “mannequin cream” evoked that phrase — “I don’t see color.” Actual blindness or colorblindness aside, we do see color, whether or not we want to acknowledge it. The last additions to this piece were some accidental black and white (under- and over-exposed) instant film, white paper punches, and finally, a small mirror, where I invite the viewer to self-examine their own color and their own beliefs.
This piece is part of my Art for Transitions virtual exhibit.