Nostalgia, a button covered teddy bear

(Above:  Nostalgia. Mixed Media. 14" x 14" x 12".  Button-covered teddy bear sitting on a custom pillow inside a small wooden drawer. Click on any image to enlarge.)

The idea for this piece has been floating around in my mind for months.  No!  That's not quite right!  It's been at least two or three years.  Why it was never started is a mystery.  After all, old teddy bears aren't difficult to find.  Many have been passed up before finally purchasing this one for $2.50 at a local thrift shop.

 

(Above:  Detail of Nostalgia.)

The origin of the idea was a merger of mental images.  One came from a story told in my TEDx talk: A young professional walked into my studio and exclaimed, "My great aunt had a jar of buttons just like yours!" To which I followed up, "Of course she did!  So did my great aunt!" And to the audience, "So did yours!"  Buttons remind us of ancestors who mended, people who saved for a rainy day, and shirts worn by our special beloveds.  Buttons are part of the thread weaving through society's family tree.  As I add in my TEDx talk:  Ordinary!  Extraordinary!  Old, used buttons have always been symbolic for nostalgia.

(Above:  Detail of Nostalgia.)

The other mental picture is a montage: Part Winnie-the-Pooh, part Paddington, part Smokey the Bear, and part the idea that Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer led Santa's sleigh dispensing toys from the Island of Misfits.  Though a bear wasn't featured in this annual holiday television show, one must have been there! I don't need to explain the nostalgia here. It's rather obvious that a teddy bear is emblematic!

 

(Above:  Nostalgia, from the back.)

So ... finally I bought a teddy bear and started covering its fur with assorted white and off-white buttons.  It became immediately apparent that this wasn't going to be as easy or straight-forward as I imagined!  Getting the buttons to stay in place was difficult.  It took two days before I figured out a process that seemed to work ... knot, attach a button, knot, move to another spot, knot, attach a button ... with plenty of extra stitches/knots to secure them.  Plus ... dealing with the overlapping and the way the stuffing seemed to condense as I stitched. Plus ... figuring out how to deal with the joints!  I stitched buttons for days on end but it was worth it!

(Above:  Nostalgia, detail of the statement's beginning on the top edge of the drawer.)

When I started this project, I had no plans for it.  Truly, it was just a hair-brained idea ... which might account for the time it remained an idea instead of a work-in-progress.  But during the frustrating days of stitching, I started to wonder about how I might show the finished bear.  How would it "stand"? Would it just "lay flat"?  How would it sit?  And if it would sit, on what would it sit?  I thought about the three cradles used for my Loss Installation but the little bear was dwarfed inside even the smallest one.  But the pillows I made for these cradles looked promising.  I then looked around for "anything" that might work.  A small nightstand caught my eye.  Its tiny drawer was perfect!  Yet, my mind continued to roam while more buttons were attached. How could the drawer be embellished without taking too much away from the bear?  That's when I thought of the top edge of the drawer as a place for a statement about nostalgia ... something not too sappy.  I googled for quotations and fell in love with one sentence by Dr. Seuss but that's copyrighted.  I made a list of statements that had no attributions.  Steve helped me select this one:  The true friends of your childhood were willing to fight monsters with you.

 

(Above:  Nostalgia, detail of the statement's ending and my signature.)

There was even room for the title, my name, and the year!  Now, this work is ready to be shown.  Where?  I have no idea but it will come to me if I continue to ask those "what if" questions!