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Description
This document represents the Senior Art Exhibition Portfolio of Rita Hamm, which was exhibited in the Bush Art Center Galleries in Spring of 2022
Semester Completed
Spring 2022
City
De Pere, WI
Keywords
Art Exhibition, Crochet, Sculpture Installation, Illustration, Mushrooms
Disciplines
Art and Design
Recommended Citation
Hamm, Rita, "Rita Hamm, Senior Art Exhibition Portfolio" (2022). Senior Art Portfolios. 72.
https://digitalcommons.snc.edu/artportfolios/72
Copyright
Rita Hamm
Artist Statement
I haven’t felt at home or safe within my home since the pandemic first started. Fairy gardens have always felt like a place where I could take shelter. If I could, I would shrink myself down to be able to fit into fairy houses and would feel right at home.
In 1893 at Chicago's World's Fair, Japan displayed an authentic Japanese Pavilion. After the World’s Fair, the pavilion was replaced by Osaka Garden to represent the mutual respect and friendship between the United States and Japan. Japan has a rich history of gardens that started centuries ago, but the one thing that heavily influenced the world was bonsai gardens. After seeing bonsai gardens at the Chicago World’s Fair, Americans started making their own miniature gardens. Another garden from Japan that inspired me is Zen gardens, because they are intended for a place of meditation as well as nature spirit dwellings. Zen Gardens are the most similar form of garden to what is known as fairy gardens. Combining these three garden types, I decided to create a safe place that houses my soul in the form of a fairy village.
There is folklore from around the world that centers around how “Fairy Rings”, rings in the ground formed out of mushrooms, came to be. Some of these stories contain mythical creatures like dragons and fairies. I illustrated four of the most interesting folklore stories as if the events happened throughout a day-night cycle.