{"id":2352,"date":"2025-10-12T16:10:30","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T16:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/?p=2352"},"modified":"2025-10-14T16:00:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T16:00:09","slug":"armed-with-scraps-lydia-ricci-builds-a-world-of-messy-miniatures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/12\/armed-with-scraps-lydia-ricci-builds-a-world-of-messy-miniatures\/","title":{"rendered":"Armed with Scraps, Lydia Ricci Builds a World of Messy Miniatures"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Armed<\/p>\n

For Lydia Ricci<\/a>, a broken pencil, outdated forms, long-ago paid bills, and tattered bits of fabric are prime materials for her elaborate, small-scale worlds. The artist credits her parents\u2019 obsession with collecting as the beginning of what\u2019s grown into a scrap-centric process. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother was an immigrant from the Ukraine who could improvise anything when we didn\u2019t have exactly what we needed, which was most of the time. And my Italian father hasn\u2019t ever thrown anything away because one day it might be useful, or some day he might get around to fixing it,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n

\"a
Detail of \u201cIt\u2019s What\u2019s Inside\u201d (2025), collected scrap materials, 10 x 38 x 13 centimeters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today, Ricci pieces together bits and baubles collected for the past 30 years that many other artists might relegate to the trash. Cardboard, candy wrappers, vintage tumblers, and so much more form uncanny miniatures that she refers to as \u201cobservations of what people anticipate, complain about, or muse over. Fleeting, unscripted exchanges\u2014mundane yet deeply human\u2014are a continual source of\u00a0inspiration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meticulous and playful, the resulting sculptures retain a messy, raw quality that is itself a collection of the original materials. Rather than mask irregularities and signs of wear, Ricci leaves traces of chaos and disorder that capture an authentic quality of modern life.<\/p>\n

Find much more from the artist on Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"a
\u201cIt\u2019s What\u2019s Inside\u201d (2025), collected scrap materials, 10 x 38 x 13 centimeters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"an
\u201cThat\u2019s Everything\u201d (2024), collected scrap materials, 30 x 35 x 16 centimeters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
\u201cThey Were Just Playing\u201d (2024), vintage red Pizza Hut tumblers and collected scrap materials, 90 x 40 x 40 centimeters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
Detail of \u201cThey Were Just Playing\u201d (2024), vintage red Pizza Hut tumblers and collected scrap materials, 90 x 40 x 40 centimeters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
Detail of \u201cThey Made It Look So Easy\u201d (2024), collected scrap materials, 22 x 26 x 15 centimeters
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"an
\u201cWe Should Have Taken Better Care of It\u201d (2023), collected scrap materials, 8 \u00a0x 8 x 10 centimeters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
\u201cHow Did You Get So Good?\u201d (2024), Ukrainian embroidery and collected scrap materials, 8 x 8 x 21 centimeters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"an
\u201cTake a Turn\u201d (2025), collected scrap materials, 80 x 46 x 5 centimeters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
Detail of \u201cTake a Turn\u201d (2025), collected scrap materials, 80 x 46 x 5 centimeters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
\u201cI Think We Got Disconnected\u201d (2025), collected scrap materials, 22 x 32 x 20 centimeters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member<\/a> today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Armed with Scraps, Lydia Ricci Builds a World of Messy Miniatures<\/a> appeared first on Colossal<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Lydia Ricci, a broken pencil, outdated forms, long-ago paid bills, and tattered bits of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2352"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2352"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2367,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2352\/revisions\/2367"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}