Blanket sculptures - June 8, 2010
Last year I made a couple of blanket sculptures in school based on some of my thoughts around biography. Through life we are covered in various blankets. From bright cuddly baby blankets to fashionable interior decorations – and in the end some old dusty rags.
The blankets are nested around each other like a spiral. Nesting the blankets gives a logical layered structure repeating itself as it grows – like an onion or the russian matryoshka dolls. The inner layers are rolled in soft baby blankets followed by a chronological order of later used rags.
The blanket rolls has a straight cut edge revealing all the different layers – just like growth rings of a tree. Not only by counting the number of growth rings can determine the age of a tree, but interpreting the spacing of growth rings can tell us much about it’s life.
In a way, the variation of qualities and appearances of the blankets can tell a story of a lived life. The size and width of the sculptures are therefore given a human size, so that the viewer can relate and activate the concept by being in the same room.
When I look back at these sculptures I find them very painterly, and I find likenesses in the colors and compositions from abstract painters like Wassily Kandinsky and Kenneth Noland
Another quality I noticed was the viewers’ desire to touch and cuddle the sculptures, most likely because of the great appeal warm and comfortable blankets have. I even had to wake up fellow students who took a nap on top of one of them 
