Building assemblages requires a lot of stuff, stuff I collect at estate and garage sales, stuff friends give me when they’re cleaning out closets, stuff I find at my local recycling store, and even the stuff from my own kitchen drawers. Assemblage-building requires a good inventory of flotsam and jetsam, and there’s never quite enough.

I’d recently collected several vintage books, one entitled When Yesterday Was Young. It became the “starter dough” for this three-dimensional piece. The doll parts made me think of childhood. I found two small wooden boxes, one a little larger than the other. The smaller one fit perfectly on top, and has such lovely dovetailed corners; I knew I had to use it. The doll’s head would fit great on top (with an armature for invisible support), but her long tresses had to go. A pearly pin became a tiara atop the new shorn hairdo that fit my vision. To draw attention to the wonderful expression on the face, I created a background of sorts using part of a man’s paisley tie. Some things you can’t explain.

A heart-shaped box fit perfectly inside the bottom box. To further the idea of childhood dreams the book title hints at, I attached a smaller “princess” doll’s head inside and surrounded it with some dreamy vintage crocheted lace. The smaller box on top became a framed shadow box for some lovely flowers from an old costume jewelry piece. I attached red disks from an abacus-like toy to a dowel I had painted; this nicely filled the space between the top and bottom boxes. With boxes and book secured to each other, I painted a striped pattern around the front edge of the bottom box, relating it to the striped dowel and adding visual interest.

I constructed armatures for the doll’s arms to secure them. Once attached, the arms begged to hold something. The large vintage marble in the right hand reminded me of the earth—big blue marble and all–and the sense of holding the future. That pleased me a lot! But the left hand needed something too; empty just didn’t feel right. My search ended when I found a little metal heart that may have been part of a necklace. It speaks of childlike love, open and ready to share.

You can see the completed assemblage here.

I hope you’ve enjoyed learning how this piece came about. The process may sound simple, but it’s not nearly as clear-cut as it seems. There’s a lot of searching and digging for compatible and meaningful pieces that contribute to the concept. Sometimes a piece will stay incomplete on my workbench until the next step reveals itself, which may take days or even weeks. But it’s the discovery and surprises inherent in creating this type of work that make it so satisfying to my artist’s heart.

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All art is copyrighted and may not be reproduced without express written permission. Copyright 2018 Laura Hunt