Take out your diorama shoeboxes, paints and . . . marshmallows?
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A picture is worth a thousand words, and sometimes artists look to unusual materials to say what they want to say. Crafting with Peeps, especially creating elaborate dioramas, has been a real hobby for years for some people. Businesses even have Peep diorama contests.
Time to find your Peeps.
The Open Notebook, a nonprofit organization with a mission to help science journalists learn from each other, will be working with three women to create “The World’s Finest (And Only … As Far As We Know) Science-Themed Peeps Diorama Contest.”
Helen Fields, Joanna Church and Kate Ramsayer have been creating Peeps dioramas since 2014. Fields and Ramsayer are both science writers, so they’re “all about communicating science in fun and interesting ways,” Fields said.
“We want your marshmallowy tableaux of great discoveries, field work, scientific processes, history of science, model organisms,” said an article on The Open Notebook. “The key is that your diorama has to be about science (all sciences welcome! We’ll even let you in, economics!), and it has to involve Peeps. Bonus points for Peeps puns. Just remember, kids — Peeps are for crafting, not eating.”
“We hope it will be fun, engaging and entertaining for a wide audience,” said Siri Carpenter, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Open Notebook.
Fields told EastIdahoNews.com that she does not, in fact, like eating Peeps, but loves them as a craft material.
“A Peeps diorama is a fun way to (communicate science) through marshmallows,” she said.
This year, Fields, Church and Ramsayer created their first science-themed diorama: a cliffside scene with Mary Anning, a paleontologist in the 1800s who has been called “the greatest paleontologist the world ever knew.” The diorama, called “Mary Anning: Paleontolopeep,” features her finding the first “peepythosaur” fossils near Lyme Regis, England.
Their Peeps dioramas are not always science-based, such as their viral hit, “Hamilpeep,” in 2016. It told the story of Alexander Hamilpeep and the other characters from the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton.”
Their first diorama in 2014 was of a Peeps knitting shop, “Knit One, Peep Two.” This one is Fields’ favorite.
“It was so elaborate,” she said. “A ton of work went into it.”
Church found dollhouse furniture for them to put in the diorama, and Ramsayer and Fields knitted little sweaters and hats for the Peeps.
The three women work together when they build these dioramas. Church works in museums, so she creates a lot of the backgrounds. In their “Moby Peep” diorama, Fields cut off Capt. Peephab’s leg and painted on Peepqueg’s tattoos. Church spend hours gluing mini marshmallows on the background to create the white Moby Peep.
Submissions will be accepted between Feb. 15 and March 10. For more information,click here.