Artist Turns Dust Bunnies Into Rabbit Sculptures

Previously, she made self-portraits using household dust, but she turned dust bunnies into rabbit sculptures for her current project.

Proulx was commissioned by Febreze Air Purifiers to make the sculptures out of 40 pounds of dust ― the average amount that the average American home collects in a year.

Collecting all that dust at once can be a challenge for even the biggest slob, so Proulx relied on friends, neighbors and students at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, where she is an assistant professor.

“People were very helpful,” Proulx told The Huffington Post. “Some people sent packets of bunny fur through the mail. My students gave me lint from the dormitory laundry machines and others reached out through Facebook.”

Making the dust bunnies look like actual bunnies presented some challenges. Proulx had to build little skeleton-like armatures and then cover them with mesh shaped like rabbit heads, rib cage and feet.She then sprayed them with shellac and spray adhesive, before sewing together the different parts.

Ironically, Proulx had to suffer for her art while doing the project."The irony is that I've suffered from allergies and only found out this past summer that the only thing I'm allergic to is dust," she laughed.

She also learned that not all dust is created equal from an artistic perspective.“The fur from long-haired animals helped hold things together,” Proulx said. “Vacuum lint can be dirty. You have to pick out the finer parts.”

The finished sculptures are being displayed behind glass at Febreze headquarters in Marlborough, Massachusetts, but Proulx isn’t washing her hands of doing future “dustworks.”