PlushUp!

PlushUp! is a photo project conceived and modeled by Ruth Shafer. Plushies and select clothing made by Ruth Shafer. Shot by Ali Richard. 2020.

“In PlushUp! Shafer brings human proportion to her soft sculptures. Known affectionately as plushies, these sculptures grow from the same fabrics as her wardrobe, and can barely be contained by arms or apartment. Face concealed, she poses and responds to the weight and volume of these physical abstractions, which evoke furniture, quilts and pillows. The corroboration of clothing and sculpture is both satisfying and tense, as her identity is physically and visually stifled. Reclining but confined, PlushUp! looks under the rug at the rigid structures that inform softness, femininity, and comfort.”