Memento Project

Objective: Carve a memento out of soap and create a plaster cast of your hand for the carving to rest in. 

Media: Plaster, Soap

Dimensions: Soap carving: 3.5 cm x 5.5 cm x 2.5 cm, Plaster hand: 25.5 cm x 7 cm x 7.5 cm

For my memento project, I carved my converse sneakers. I chose them because they remind me of my father, who has worn bright red converse almost every day since college. He wore them every day to work, and he even wore them on his wedding day. While he has sneakers now that are more suitable for Maine weather, I still see those bright red converse occasionally. Last winter, my father gifted me a pair of brown converse, which I immediately liked. To me that was special because it felt like he was creating a new tradition to be passed down. I have worn those shoes a lot since then, and they serve as a nice reminder of my father.

I think that personal meaning definitely made me more motivated in making this project, because it felt more special than an abstract sculpture. Adding a plaster cast of my hand also made the project more personal, because it adds a piece of myself to the sculpture. 

Some of the challenges I discovered while making this sculpture was scaling the sculpture to fit with the size of the soap bar, because I had to be careful in choosing where in the bar would give me the most to work with for my desired shape. My advice would be to carve the middle of the soap bar into a rough box shape if you aren’t doing something flatter. 

I think I have accurately portrayed my converse, and shown that they are important and to me by adding lots of careful details.