Little Comfort

“Little Comfort” is a large-scale mixed media piece I created for my Mixed Media class, where we were tasked with producing a large-scale appropriation. This work is my playful take on Jeff Koons’ Lips.

Instead of recreating the anonymous, glossy features of the original, I swapped them out for my own, along with a few hometown Easter eggs, including a nod to Ruth Wakefield, the inventor of the Toll House cookie. I wanted the piece to feel personal, funny, and a little over the top in the best way.

It’s also a love letter, and a small dig, at the two Massachusetts towns that raised me, Whitman and Hanson. Going to college out of state, I was constantly asked where in Massachusetts I was from, and when I’d say “South Shore,” the follow-up question would always be which town, usually followed by total confusion. So I leaned into the only things people actually recognize, cookies and cranberry juice. Whitman is where the Nestlé Toll House chocolate chip cookie was invented, and Hanson is the birthplace of Ocean Spray. The cookies, cranberries, milk, juice, and my own facial features come together in this pop-surreal world that turns that “irrelevance” into something bright, playful, and very me. Even the title references Whitman’s original name from 1670, which felt fitting.

This piece ended up meaning more to me than I expected. As I finish up my four years, after plenty of burnout and creative blocks, Little Comfort reminded me why I make art in the first place. It helped me fall back in love with painting, trust my ideas again, and find joy in building something from my own story.