We were hoping to run this in the September issue but ran out of space with all of those Back to School cuties! it's too good to leave out though so we're adding it here. 

At first glance, it may look like a brightly stocked supermarket from decades past. The shelves are packed with colorful cereal boxes, frozen dinners, canned goods, beauty products, cleaning supplies and familiar snacks. Look a little closer, however, and you will discover that nothing is quite what it seems.

Every package, bottle, box and grocery item has been meticulously recreated in felt.

British artist Lucy Sparrow has transformed the Momentary into a playful trip through time with Lucy Sparrow: The Beginning of Convenience, an immersive installation inspired by an American supermarket of the 1980s and ’90s.

Featuring more than 20,000 individually handcrafted felt objects, the exhibition is Sparrow’s first museum exhibition in the United States.

Walking through the exhibition is a little like stepping into a childhood memory. Adults may find themselves recognizing products once tucked inside lunchboxes, waiting in the freezer after school or sitting on the bathroom counter at home. Younger visitors can experience a colorful version of the grocery store their parents or grandparents remember, with each aisle offering something surprising to discover.

The level of detail is remarkable. Sparrow does not simply create general representations of grocery products. Each piece is carefully researched, cut, sewn and painted to resemble a specific item from a not-so-distant past.

Together, the thousands of soft sculptures create a fully stocked supermarket that feels familiar, nostalgic and wonderfully unexpected.

Behind the exhibition’s cheerful colors and playful appearance is a fascinating look at a period of major change in American family life.

Sparrow refers to the 1980s as the “beginning of convenience,” when increasing numbers of households had two working parents and consumers began looking for products that could save time.

Grocery store shelves filled with frozen meals, microwaveable foods, packaged snacks and dinners that could be prepared quickly from a box. Those products changed the way families shopped, cooked and gathered around the table.

Many of the conveniences that feel completely ordinary today were still new and exciting at the time.

By recreating these everyday items through a slow, labor-intensive artistic process, Sparrow invites visitors to look at them differently. An object that may have once been quickly tossed into a shopping cart can take hours to reproduce by hand.

The contrast between mass-produced convenience and painstaking craftsmanship is part of what makes the exhibition so interesting.

There is plenty for aspiring young artists to explore as well.

The exhibition includes a replica of Sparrow’s studio, affectionately known as the “Felt Cave,” offering visitors a glimpse into the colorful environment where her creations come to life.

A self-produced documentary follows Sparrow during the months leading up to the Momentary exhibition, providing a behind-the-scenes look at the imagination, research and tremendous amount of work involved in creating such an ambitious installation.

For families, The Beginning of Convenience offers a wonderfully unusual back-to-school outing.

Children can search the shelves for recognizable foods and household products, compare older packaging with what they see in stores today and consider how artists can transform the most ordinary parts of life into something extraordinary.

Parents and grandparents may also enjoy sharing memories of the products they grew up with, turning the exhibition into a fun conversation between generations.

Parents of younger children may want to prepare them before entering the exhibition.

The soft, colorful creations are incredibly tempting to touch, pick up and place inside an imaginary shopping cart, but the felt items are works of art and must remain on the shelves.

A quick reminder that this is a “look closely, but do not touch” supermarket may help little visitors enjoy the experience while protecting Sparrow’s extraordinary handiwork.

Whether visitors come for the art, the memories, the history or simply the delight of seeing an entire supermarket recreated in felt, this one-of-a-kind exhibition proves that inspiration can be found almost anywhere, even in the frozen-food aisle.