Actually...Monkey! Vintage Lilly will be featuring and selling handmade sock monkeys! Let's face it... who doesn't love a sock monkey?!
I (Gabby) did not grow up with a sock monkey to love. It wasn't until my college years that I first interacted with one. My roommate at Memphis Art College had a sock monkey her mother made her and I thought it was one the cutest little creatures. After my first interaction with this monkey I quickly wanted to create one for my nephew (he was just two years old at the time). I used my roommates Monkey as a reference and it sat in my studio for months. I was a very busy senior at this time and although I had great intentions for starting a sock monkey for my very loved nephew it took me almost three months do so. After I created one, I quickly started the second but became to busy and it sadly never got finished. For the remainder of my senior year, my studio was home to Claudia's childhood sock monkey, the blue sock monkey (that was going to be a gift for my nephew) and the start of a sock monkey that was just a torso and legs. The three monkeys all sat side by side for several months and became known notoriously as the "Three Amigos" or Claudia, Gabby and Phoebe (our third roommate aka my cat) This inspired my roommate to create a series of paintings and drawings using sock monkeys to retell stories or childhood relationships which inspired several other bodies of work.