Thursday 20 January 2011

Changeling 7


No 6 was supposed to come first but has resisted the shape I'd envisaged for it. I'm not sure how well this one works. It is diminutive not only in terms of size. A bit like the youngest of many siblings, who never quite manages to catch up with the others. I like the simplicity of its shape which seems to combine an air of completeness with an uncertainty about what to become. It has made me think about growing (up) without reference points. Or only ever being able to look into a partial mirror and focusing on that visible part of the body without, for whichever reason, being able to make sense of the body as a whole. It's about self-perception, isn't it? As a teenager I was convinced I had fat thighs. I was actually stick-thin, but took my clue from the view of squashed flesh when I was sitting down. I'm trying to remember if we had a full-length mirror at home, no, don't think we did, and glances into a shop window or a mirror at a store weren't enough to change my mind. Strangely I'm also thinking of winged seeds trailing down from a plane tree. Maybe there's a being in here that is spinning about trying to find places to put its legs, arms and head, to be whole.

Materials: crocheted from Jaggerspun Zephyr Wool-Silk
Dimensions: 19.5 cm x 34.5 cm


PS. My digital camera isn't working anymore (see white balance turning green here) and I'm looking into buying a new and better one. Would be grateful for recommendations.

4 comments:

mansuetude said...

its odd but true, that the youngest sibling may feel a bit unable to fit, so to speak, into the oldest sibling's memory skin. A span of different worlds...

Ursula Achten said...

the small one... If I would be in there, I could put out my legs and try to reach someone with my arms...someone to help me...but where is the head?
Feeling like a...toy(?)...used but not percepted as a complete being..scared...


about a camera: I would look at the canon powershot G12

Erin Curry said...

I adore this series, these sisters and cousins. I think of them alone and together exploring the world and tryingtryingtrying to grasp the ideas of themselves as their bodies grow and change sofast! I like what you say about how one can actually only see themselves without the mirror. in our heads it mirrors back what our eyes view. And this pleases me immensely. the girlchildish lace not quite neuter. the vulnerable viserality of being in a body.

just seeing these changlings my thoughts fracture into that place I inhabited as a child: quiet, alone even while surrounded, and the space in which nothing of my world seemed wholly solid.

these seem very connected to your perfect (hairy) maidens in their siblinghood, but they are, I think, moving past my association with old myths and fairytale and now rather somehow more magical-realism.

It's strong work. I'm excited to see whatelse comes.

redredday said...

hi Marjojo ~ i was surprised by the new color. a little jarring to me for some reason. although the green makes me think of the first tender sprout of springtime, something fresh and soothing. but it feels young and old at the same time. interesting that it remains number 7 even though it is completed before the 6th. i wonder how the order of each one will play in our perception of it when you see them all together.