The Abstract Dollhouse

Process

This project was developed as a creative response to the challenge of being a student during the 2020 quarantine.

Dolls were made with the use of campus studios beforehand, but the dollhouse itself was made in a studio apartment. Materials were mostly gathered from around the house, including my own past work. Lighting consisted of a window, two lamps, a handmade copper light, and the colored LED on a game console controller. I worked alone, with help from my cat.

A photo of a black and white cat with green eyes.
Studio Assistant Spruce

Rooms

This project is designed to be ephemeral and modular. The staged assemblies aren’t permanent constructions, but temporary arrangements of objects that can be broken down into their base parts and used again. The rooms were staged in various places around my own room, including bookshelves, cardboard boxes, and my desk.

The Moon Room being constructed on a bookshelf.
The Green Room being constructed on the floor.
The Warm Room being constructed on a small desk.
The Rainbow Room being constructed in a large cardboard box.
The Dream Room being constructed in a large cardboard box.

Notebook

My process notebook is another major component. In this book I kept all of my research notes, sketched ideas, reflected on the work, and experimented with color in freeform exercises. It acted as an external brain for the project, and now exists as a 100+ page record of the full process.

A spiral-bound sketchbook with a hard burgundy cover, the bottom half of which is covered in black felt. There are black circles drawn on the remaining space, a panda sticker in the top right corner, and a yarn bookmark.
A notebook page listing the basic design concepts for each room.
A notebook page with pen drawings of several of the project dolls.
A notebook page with colorful abstract boxes and shapes, all drawn in crayon.
A notebook page reflecting on the components of space, breaking it down into the self and the environment.
A notebook page making connections between dollhouses and picturebooks, as well as notes about the game What Remains of Edith Finch.
A notebook page with an exercise on color associations.