by C. Rixford, S. Tripodi and T. Wheeler

2016, Ivory soap, from the Novotny Collection

Original: Jessine Hein, [date], [size], [media]

Soap Carving Context:

Clean Cuts: Procter & Gamble’s Depression‐Era Soap‐Carving Contests

"In the 1920s and 1930s, Procter & Gamble popularized the art of soap carving through a series of annual competitions, which explicitly promoted handicraft as a therapeutic alternative to the machine age. However, soap sculpture in fact offered a way to accommodate the changes associated with commercial modernization. A do-it-yourself hobby that relied on mass production, turned the household chore of shaving soap into an art form, and produced compact works of art that reflected the demands of factory production, soap sculpture is an example of ‘‘antimodern modernism’’—assimilating and aestheticizing the very processes of modernization it otherwise appeared to oppose."
 

"As a fourth-grader in the 1950s, Diane Harper and her class carved mission models out of Ivory soap. As a fourth-grade teacher in the 1970s, Harper had her class make their own soap missions. This is a demo model Harper carved for her students in the 1970s."

Mission Project

A CHALLENGE:

1. Carve David Bowie's teeth out of a bar of Ivory Soap. 

2. Carve one of the California Missions or...

3. Carve an elephant, you pick.