Friday 12 June 2009

Hey Doll-face!





I didn't sleep for 3 nights on the trot at the dog-end of may. Sunday afternoon was gorgeous and sultry. We sat in the yard, my daughter and I, pasting shreds of the weekend paper into our sketchbooks. Found a drawer full of old car spray-paints and an alphabet stencil from nursery school, expounded on the joy of layering - the thrill of the serendipitous encounter of disparate elements. (She wasn't much interested in theory).

During those thin, febrile pseudo-sleeps I've been having of late, I find myself pursued by masked characters. I discover severed heads and body-parts in the sod - panic - attempt to alert the 'authorities', and then find myself mocked by a snickering crowd and a tribe of blandly smirking manikins.

I'm trying to live a regular life - follow the rules and conventions. But these little fuckers are marching through my brain by night and tapping on the panes by day.

I'd just like to know why.

What do they want?

3 comments:

  1. It's no doubt one of those questions where the answer probably comes easier when the question isn't asked...? he pondered, bullshittingly.

    p.s. I like the dolls - much more pleasant than Hans Bellmer's.

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  2. Hello there and nice of you to drop by!
    I got to thinking on Bellmer after I'd made these images too. The dismembered, many-jointed doll has featured in my dreams since as long as I can remember only s/he's a far more aggressive, 'phallic' presence than Bellmer's femme-enfants - which--have long time fascinated and repulsed me naturaly. Much as I adore the surrealists, their 'sexual-politics' are problematic at best! Still, it was the era. I'd like to think we're a bit healthier these days (although the evidence is thin).
    But these babes are really rather pretty and sassy and nowhere near as malevolent as the dream-manikins. Perhaps I was trying to tame them.
    And you're bullshittingly right - I don't know why I bother asking these questions either.
    K.x

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  3. P.s. D - the word I was looking for was less hysterical rather than healthier. We might well be that - some of us at any rate.
    I should go to bed. Brain churning.
    K.x

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