Welcome to the Big Top is a series of clown suits; original full body wearable costume pieces, inspired by clowns and jesters. They are all made of found and thrifted mixed materials and fabrics, each also having a paper mache mask to wear with the full piece. Each cluit (clown suit) has their own name, personality, role, and a specific relationship to the others, all exploring various parts of my identity. Looney’s cluit is gaudy and large, due to her being a princess and loving to show off, and representing the piece of my brain that feels like a beautiful feminine princess. Scurria is a moth fairy, so her color palette is more understated and the fabrics and structure are more elegant, exploring the part of me that prances through the woods and lives with the fae. The role of each of these clowns are found by exploring the details of their costumes and learning their stories. The job of clowns and jesters is to make people happy, so the focus of these designs are to be whimsical and colorful, expressing different personalities and talents with each cluit. Additional paintings, designs, animations, and costume pieces are made to enhance these cluits and build upon their stories.
CV
2023 Bachelor of Fine Arts, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts
Fibers • Drawing & Painting
2023 Bachelor of Arts, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee College of Letters and Science
Art History
Awards
2022 Dick Blick Juried Show Second Place Award, Blick Art Materials, Milwaukee, WI
Commissions
2023 April Biggs, Pink House Studio, Milwaukee, WI, “Sick Girl” Costumes
Group Exhibition Work
2023 Black & White - NAdiaNA Gallery, Milwaukee, WI
2023 Enchanted: An Homage to Rock City’s Fairyland Caverns - Studio 59, Hammondville, AL
2023 BA/BFA Spring Exhibition - Kenilworth Square East Gallery, UW-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI
2023 Spring Celebration Show - The Tavern Club, Cudahy Art Coalition, Chicago, IL
2023 Future Tense - The Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery, Surface Design Association, Lincoln, NE
2023 Fiber // Form - Kenilworth Square East Gallery, UW-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI
2023 Seven Deadly Sins - Backspace Gallery, Accrete Art Collective, Bloomington, IN
2022 Woven Images - Kenilworth Square East Gallery, UW-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI
2022 Sophomore/Junior Scholarship Showcase - Art Center Gallery, UW-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI
2022 Dick Blick Juried Show - Blick Art Materials, Blick Art Materials Co, Milwaukee, WI
2019 First Year Experience - Union Art Gallery, UW-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI
Publications
Directory Zine 1, August 3, 2023
Filthy Glo Zine, no. 4, March 21, 2023. 10.
The Purposeful Mayonnaise 2, no. 5, February 15, 2023. 58.
Inner Life Creations, “Ready Enough” Practice, no. 17, February 3, 2023. 14.
“Space,” The Sour Collective, no. 16, February 6, 2023.
Meditating Cat Zine, no. 6, January 31, 2023. 30.
Crab Apple Literary 1, no. 1, January 20, 2023. 13-14.
“Pink Moth: Autumn 2022,” Pink Moth, January 7, 2023.
Xomik Buk, “Don’t Get Your Kid a Pet For Christmas,” December 29, 2022. 10.