Tara Hutton

I went to Tara's SMP presentation this past week and got to see what she has been working on other then helping us in class. She found an interest early in books, more specifically childrens' books. She also shows and interest in dolls. As children we play with paper cut out dolls, we get to pick which one we like, usually a princess or someone from a fairy tale. Then much like a Barbie doll we dress them us in pretty clothes and subconciously enbody ourselves within that doll. Yet in life the paper dolls we give children are like Barbie, disproportional and unrealistic.

Tara's dolls are for adults (college students if you can call us adults). They picture realistic body shapes of realistic people. The dolls start naked, and rather then being bare they do shoe sex characteristics that we cannot expose our children to. The male is large and is proportioned like true man in this day, along with the women. She also provides backgrounds colored in like a childs book but they are in settings more realistic to the age of the dolls, a bar, a hallway, and kitchen.

Tara is fascinated with the internet and how you can be completely anonymous on the WWW. You can be out of your personal sphere while on the internet you can be whoever you want to be. Look at facebook and myspace, people depict themselves as sometimes something completely different then in real life. A fifty year old man is a twelse year old girl. By her putting her dolls on a site she encourgaes interaction from the viewer. She wants people to dress them up and place them in a setting. Then the way they place people and display them, shows the creators personality.

Her work raises stereotypes and real world people but in a good way. Nothing is sugar coated. During her speech she talked about how art has came form the private to the public and back into the private world. The private world of million dollar paintings to the internet accessible to everyone and back to it being only in ones home in a private setting. Tara did a great job with her SMp and I believe I will see more of her work while exploring the web one day!