The prompt was to create a collection and a means to display them. So, naturally, I created cat-sized paintings, recreating popular paintings in the history of art, with cats as the subjects. Then I made a cat sized museum in which to display them. I thought up this idea while joking around with friends, and I don’t think I took it seriously. Before I knew it, I was invested in something that I thought was insane. Through the many hours it took to paint the tiny paintings, construct the building, install the lighting, and suspend it within a black box of fabric, I often asked myself, “what possessed me to do this?” I’m not sure. But I think this may be my proudest artistic achievement to date.
Forgive the sloppiness of the panoramas. It’s really difficult to have a steady hand while you are turning around on your knees, with your head in box.
Over thanksgiving I painted for 33 hours, sitting in the living room, interjecting into family conversation with a single-hair paint brush in hand. I found images of famous paintings in art history as well as images of cats whose faces and general attitude fit those of the people in the paintings. On my procreate app I adjusted the colors of the cat pictures in order to match the coloring of the painting more closely. Then I painted each recreation, relishing the absurdity of what I was doing. I love detail work like this, painting images that fit in the palm of my hand. My back and neck didn’t love it, but I’m sure they’ll forgive me when I get to rest during Christmas break.
I made little artist statements for each painting, with cat puns for titles and names. My autocorrect was very confused. Here are the paintings with their titles and names of the artists. The backdrop of each painting is the piece of cardboard that I used as a palette for all the paintings. That is my thumb holding them up, to give you a sense of their size.
Meowna Lisa, by Meownardo da Catchi
The Yowl, by Edward Meownch
The Nuzzle, by Gustav Clampt
(With real gold leaf!)
Catposition in Red, Blue, and Yellow, by Piet Meowndrian
Whisker’s Mother, by James Catbot McNiell Whisker
The Cat with the Purrrl Earring, by Johannesburg Vermeower
American Clawthic, by Grant Meowed
Van Meow’s Self-Portrait, by Vincent van Meow
With my Dad I cut out styrofoam sheets in order to create the 3x3x2 Mewseum. We cut out baseboards and pillars as well. We painted the walls with some leftover house paint. Here is a picture of the process.
I assembled the Mewseum, using different types of tapes and glues, doing my best to secure this lightweight styrofoam structure. I got very familiar with duct tape.
To put up the painting I needed to make sure they were at least somewhat level. This wasn’t possible while outside of the box, so I sat inside it. Here’s a picture of me at one of my happiest moments.
The lighting was probably the most frustrating aspect. Many times in this project I would set out to do a task that I thought would take an hour, and it would end up taking 5 or more. This was definitely one of those tasks. I thought it would be a simply matter of poking some holes, sticking in some Christmas lights, and maybe cutting out some paper light shades. It got a little more complicated than that. I wanted to allow the highest possible amount of light to come in, so I had to adjust my former designs. I created four sort of skylights in the middle, cutting out four squares out of the ceiling and putting some plastic table cloth material inside the holes. I attached a mesh of Christmas lights on top of that. Around the sides I created quasi-spot lights. They basically just point down, but I think the idea gets across. I thought that this would take no more than two hours. It was much longer. I sat in the UN room, Christmas lights trailing around me for some festive ambiance, and cut out dozens of paper and foil cones. I connected the paper cones to the inside foil cones while watching the Great British Baking Show (I highly recommend).
Finally I finished making the cones and it came time to attach them to the lights as they poked into the ceiling. First I had to tape groups of 5 lights together, and poke them into one hole. I had to do that process 32 times. Once that was done I took the ceiling off and laid it upside down so I could attach the cones.
I suspended the Mewseum between three coat racks. I used safety pins to put up some black table cloths around the frames of the coat racks. I wanted to create a mysterious, sleek experience. Using a good amount of wire, my friend Audrey and I attached the duct tape loops to the coat racks. Audrey held the Mewseum on her head as I frantically tied the wires, trying to get them level. We had to turn the lights off, because it was getting too hot.
The Mewseum was successfully suspended, but it caused the coat racks to lean in on each other, which made the front curtain sag. Audrey and I moved the long red couch onto the left side of the Mewseum, using the weight of it to keep the coat rack upright. To keep the other side upright we went on a hunt for big rocks. Those arrows are directions to the plug, so that people would plug it in and unplug it themselves, in order to keep the Mewseum from overheating. The experience as a whole was an absurd time that I wouldn’t trade for anything.
It was an adventure trying to document the Mewseum from the inside. It’s difficult to take photos from the right angle and height when you have your head and arms inside a box, sticking up through the hole like a kid who got stuck in an innertube.
I got a few shots of Audrey in the Mewseum, looking as if she was sticking her head up into the opening of heaven.
After I realized that the concentration of Christmas lights and the lack of proper ventilation makes the Mewseum quite warm, I decided to keep it unplugged unless people were actively experiencing it. I make signs in order to add the plugging in and unplugging to the Mewseum directions. Rather appropriately, I’m sure cats would love to visit the Mewseum, since its so warm.
The best parts of the process may have been getting to witness the experience of others with the Mewseum. Before our final, I took many friends from outside of class to see it. I loved hearing their reactions as I sat outside. Most of them had already seen the paintings when they were on my desk in my dorm room. The last person to go in was my friend Emily who hadn’t seen the paintings yet. The rest of us sat on the floor listening to her reacting to it, reading off the titles and names, giggling and gasping the whole time. My friend Hannah turned to me and said, “this is art... hearing her reaction and knowing what she is looking at. That is art.” Another friend of mine came by when no one else was there. She sat behind the curtain with her head in the box, talking to me as I sat on the floor outside of it, back against the wall. We talked like that for a long time. She had been having an awful morning, and she said that being in the Mewseum was like being in a different world. She said she felt safe and that from then on, she was in a better mood. This was a little place that people would escape from the stress of finals.
I wanted to make something lighthearted, for the first time in awhile. I like cats, obviously, and wanted to display the elegance and culture that I imagine them having. In Sophomore year of high school I made a large version of the cat with the purrrl earring, and looking back on that I figured doing miniatures of that and other similarly famous paintings would be a blast. I didn’t foresee how much work it would be, but it was definitely worth it.
My plan for the Mewseum in the future, is to install it somewhere in my house, lifted up with some sort of ramp leading into it. The dream is that someday I will poke my head up into it and find one of my cats snuggled up in the corner, taking in both its warmth and its culture.
However, that doesn’t mean that I’m not willing to sell some of them. I’m sure my cats would understand. :)
