Horse Dancer

Making family stories tangible

This graphic design project began by choosing a meaningful object: my Papaw’s old fishing bobber. The deliverable included making a paper cube and an accordion booklet to demonstrate several different representative drawings of the ‘Horse Dancer’ bobber that capture its essence as a meaningful object.

I decided that I wanted to focus on the accordion booklet because it was the perfect vessel to tell an infamous family story. My family consists of amazing storytellers, and their hilarious stories- my Papaw being one of them. He and my Mamaw passed away this past year, so I used this booklet as a tribute to them and their lives, and all the funny stories of theirs I grew up listening to.

The story included in the accordion is about my Mamaw going fishing with her kids and Papaw’s mother, and falling into alligator infested water while Papaw’s mother has a big laugh about her misfortune and clumsiness.