I first fell in love with The Small Object when our stylist Vanessa featured a tin from the label in our 100 lovely things under $100 story in July/August. I ended up buying FOUR of them from Cocoon Launceston.
The Small Object is the work of Sarah Neuburger, based in Savannah, Georgia, and her creativity is anything but XS-sized. Her label includes everything from wedding cake toppers, 'Sweet Tooth' stamps, 'Stick 'Em Up' scratch pads, moustache picks and – my favourite – the Thumb Wars series, which depicts dexterous digits in military battle.
Can you tell me how The Small Object kicked into life?
The shop started back at the end of 2004. After graduating art school, I knew I didn't want to make a living from my fine art solely and knew securing gallery representation and annual shows wasn't a good fit for me personally. The thought gave me hives – well not really, but I knew I didn't have the stomach to pimp my stuff in that manner.
After working in an arts administration position for a few years, I also knew that I really wanted to be putting my energy towards making my own work. Plus, my interest in both traditional craft and fine art was always mixing and mingling, so I never really knew where I would fit in.
What I thought would awesome would be to sell my work directly to clients and customers online. I would create the space, so I didn't have to fit into any one thing. It would just be me. It was the absolute perfect solution for me.
I started the online shop with about 20 items. Prior to that, I was living and working in New York City; but when I decided to start my shop, I moved to a smaller and much cheaper city back in the South so I could afford to start the shop.
You make quite a few different lovely things, from stamps and stationery to wedding toppers. What do you find the most enjoyable to make? And the hardest?
The hardest thing to make are the things I no longer make – sewn goods! I hated it! Having to sew up 200 bags of the same thing was something I absolutely could not stand, so I stopped sewing stuff to sell.
On the flipside, I absolutely love making wedding toppers. They are such deeply personal items made for such an incredibly important moment in people's lives, that I feel so crazy honored to be asked to make them for folks. What could be better than making something that calls attention to how crazy in love two people are for each other? It's so beautiful! Plus, they are each one-of-a-kind, so they never get old or repetitive.
I love the characters on your tins, stamps, etc. Can you tell me where these figures come from (are you the kind of artist who makes up personalities and histories for your characters) – or are they just random scribbles and visual adornment?
I'm not the type of artist who creates elaborate alternative lives to their characters. I think that – though it may sound bad to admit it – they are all really me or people I know!
A friend that I had not talked to in a while saw my Cupcake Cutie Candle Holders and mentioned how they looked exactly like me! Which may be true but I wear glasses so I can still resist the claim.
But what I do find hysterical is the idea of a ton of mini-mes running around being stuck in cakes and folks singing Happy Birthday to themselves (i.e. me) before blowing out the candles. You can't get much better than that!
I love your Thumb Wars prints. Can you tell me the story behind them? And did you have to call in other thumbs to complete it?
For a few years, I was obsessed with thumb wars. It was what me and my friends would do when we were at a bar or sitting waiting for the train. And I got pretty good. I had a secret move that would work nine times out of ten.
About this time, I was also drawing a lot with charcoal and I used it very aggressively on paper and would move it around alot with my hands. The fingerprints were really important to me – the idea of being able to see how the work was made and created by hand, of touch and how important that connection is to people.
So the two worlds collided one day, as I was thinking about connections and the mark of the maker and how a fingerprint can identify an individual person.
Fingerprints are packed with all sorts of meaning for me. So one day, as I was thinking about all this stuff, it hit me. I needed to create an actual historical thumb war battle scene – a fake history to the major events of the individuals/fingerprints' lives. And then there was no stopping me. It was so perfect.
Do you think where you live plays a role in your creativity and what you make?
I think what I see and think about plays a role – so to that end, location can certainly make a difference. But I think I would create no matter where I lived, it just make take on different nuances. But what kills creativity for me is stress.
You juggle loads of different projects. Do you have any advice on how to creatively multi-task without going crazy (and losing lots of sleep)?
Organisation. My supplies are organised, my workspace is organised, I try to keep my head organised.
I am a compulsive list-maker. Keeping things and processes productive and efficient is key for me. If I want to watch a movie on Friday night, then I'll cut stamps when I do it. If I am driving to visit my family, I'll turn off the radio and think about new ideas or projects and write them down while I'm driving. I never leave it – which I'm sure wouldn't be a very balanced life for some folks, but for me, it feeds me. It makes me happy and I thoroughly enjoy it. It's mind-blowing sometimes how lucky I feel.
You sell a lot of your work online. What’s it like working in your studio and getting orders from around the world. Are you surprised by requests and where they come from?
Each and every order is a wonderful surprise. It really truly is – every single order I get excited about. You never know when it will come in, where it will come, what they will order. But at that exact moment, someone, somewhere, bought it. They saw it, they loved it and they wanted it. That's just a beautiful event.
It's the internet. I am 32, so I can actually remember when people talked about the "world wide web" before it happened and how people used to describe it to me. And it's just insane that it's here. I can remember learning to type on a computer using Wordstar and printing reports on dot matrix printers! I remember folks telling me what the "www" would be – like, how I could look at pictures from the Louvre in my backyard. It's just crazy!
What’s next for you?
More of the same! Plus, I've been collaborating with some fun folks on a journal and coming up with a fabric design so that will be cool. I am constantly adding new stuff to my own shop, so it's constantly changing. I am also going to get serious about my skating skills!
To see all the marvellous things that Sarah makes, visit The Small Object site here and you can also head over to Sarah's blog, where there may/may not be updates on her skating progress.
Lee Tran, deputy chief sub-editor
0 comments:
Post a Comment