Gregor's Room Student Work In-Process

 

Tanis Montgomery

Woven copy paper, colored with ink. 

Approximately 2-inch square

Comments below regarding process.

When we began to talk about bedding in class, and many people mentioned that things in Gregor's room reminded them of things in their grandmothers' houses, I thought of a blanket that my grandmother had in her house.  It is a Scottish wool plaid blanket, very warm, but as is typical of Scottish wool blankets, also very itchy.  I knew that I wanted to use wool to add to my message of discomfort.  I created this blanket by twisting very thin strips of paper and then weaving them together. I purposefully kept the weaving from being very tight so that the blanket would be threadbare and unable to provide Gregor with any comfort.  It would also not be very helpful in his attempts to hide himself from his family, which emphasis the idea that his attempts to hide were rather futile in the first place because of his size and shape.  Some of the unraveling at the edges also calls to memory the franticness of Gregor's attempt to get out of bed, trapped on his back with his thin little legs thrashing around in the air.  There were several times in the story when Gregor's body seemed to be his own enemy.  The idea that, maybe in that first instant of realizing he was a bug, he contributed to the destruction of something that could give him comfort is evident in this last feature of the blanket.