Second part of a triptych…

20 February 2011

So it appears I am making a triptych.  I have been using the other parts of the doll whose limbs appeared on this blog last week.  I am not altogether certain if the box translates as well into 2D because of the scale of the ear – it kind of gets lost, but here it is anyway.  I did try making this using a larger ear which I had surgically removed from a Girlsworld.  You know, one of those heads you can acquire to apply make-up to and style its hair with curlers and so forth.  But the Girlsworld ear was too orange, too spray-tan-looking and not as well molded as this one.  It also made me think of Van Gogh, which I didn’t want.

What I was thinking of, was Vasko Popa’s poem ‘Between Games’ from his Games sequence:

And this one has turned himself altogether into an ear

And heard everything that’s not to be heard

But he’s had enough

And is aching to turn back into himself

But without ears, he can’t see how.

The third part of the triptych will involve the doll’s torso.  By using every part of the doll, it feels like less like unmitigated doll cruelty.  A bit like using animal pelts for clothing and their bones to boil down for stock.  The eyes of the doll look too prettily painted-on for me to be able to use convincingly anywhere.  It doesn’t mean to say they are not watching my every movement.