Consumer Product Artist Statement

I created a teddy bear as a part of my Zenith project. I imagined my children’s book being sold as a package deal with the teddy bear for the child to hold while their parent reads to them. The teddy bear represents a character from my book, Teddy the blue bear who personifies depression. My inspiration came from a favorite stuffed animal that I personally owned as a kid. If I were to make another stuffed animal in the future, I would invest in higher quality fabric and learn how to sew. With this plushy, I struggled with getting the hot glue to stick and found that a textile with fur or fuzz would have served better to hide mistakes and seams. Despite those inconveniences, this was a very fun and enjoyable process and I really valued it.