In her final projects, Phoebe Currier explores the creation of spaces through the illusion of rooms, which she crafted from a combination of found and repurposed objects. At first glance, these rooms consist of the standard miniatures, objects created in the same way as their larger counterparts but on a smaller scale, like dollhouse furniture. While the artist created some of the pieces in the room (i.e. the counters and the bed) from scratch wood or fabric, at closer inspection many of the objects in these rooms had a former identity as trivial objects in the larger human world. The stove is an electrical box with a bottle cap range and handle made of nails. The carpeting in the bedroom is an old towel. The soap dish in the kitchen is an aspirin on a button, sitting on a sandpaper counter. There are button dishes in the sink as well! The bedside table uses playing cards on a spool of thread, and the chair in the bedroom uses game pieces for the legs. The trashcan is a measuring cup from a medicine bottle and the kitchen table’s legs are crayons. These rooms become little puzzles, as the viewer begins to search for the original sources of these miniature household items. I think Phoebe is most successful in her repurposing of these found objects, as opposed to elements she crafts from scratch. The cabinets, made from wood to look specifically like cabinets, are too similar to their full size counterpart, lacking the formal depth of the other elements that repurpose everyday items. The use of found objects creates a tension between the illusion of realism of the rooms and the familiarity of the trivial objects. I find the stove especially successful in creating the illusion of realism while simultaneously showing quite clearly how it was made. The bottle caps and pull-tabs from cans are recognizable, and yet the arrangement of these elements creates the gestalt of a stove. Phoebe is truly successful in her ability to create miniature rooms that feel like actual spaces, despite the obvious use of repurposed material. Both rooms emulate the various textures and colors found in real spaces, and this eclecticism creates a real aesthetic personality for the set as a whole, making the rooms feel as though they belong to real people in a real home.

-Hannah Shepherd