Measuring Histories

 




Dad’s Life

Foam board, artist tape, hot glue, cereal boxes, cereal


Ever since he was a child, my Dad has loved cereal. He grew up surrounded by Kellogg’s commercials on the television which has stuck with him into his adulthood. When I had the assignment to make a piece that measures time, I knew I wanted to represent the years of his life with a certain amount of his favorite cereal. It’s fitting that his favorite cereal is Life!


I purchased 62 cups worth of cereal, one for each year of his life, and overfilled a big bowl with all of it. This alone conveys the time element, but I wanted to make the piece more personal by creating a “call and response” portion above the bowl that used inside jokes we share. My Dad’s favorite cereal says, “Respect the process!!!” Which is a quote from a Gillette Labs commercial my Dad and I are obsessed with. On the right, my favorite cereal Captain Crunch responds, “It’s too much!!!” Which is a quote from a Taco Bell breakfast commercial starring Pete Davidson. I was very pleased with the clean and legible result of attaching cereal to the letters cut out of foam board. These personal references spelled out with cereal also apply to the piece itself, as you need to “respect the process” of creating it while it is simultaneously, “too much!!!”

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