Dolls

[smokingboot]

Trying to create a new vibe for a new piece of work, it is singularly odd trying to connect into this sense of 'English Eerie,' right now because the politiical stuff is so wacked, there seems to be no backdrop of normality against which to contrast something strange. When the music is all discordant, no single note can set the nerves tingling.  There is nothing indefinable to suspect, in fact there is no suspicion at all; the danger is in one's face shouting,and idiotic. There is defiinitely something  there, but I'm just not connecting into it on a creative level. Honestly it's too stupid.

So I went searching for the bizarre, to see what I could find that might tweak some chord in my head. As it turned out,an argument with a most odd individual led me to a page of beauty and grotesquerie. I find dolls disturbing. This is a development from my childhood, when they just struck me as dull. These are not dull - in fact one at least would certainly be at home in my perfect house where  every corner holds a painting or an artefact or a letter that may trigger a story - but I find the juxtaposition of these strangely inhuman over-human eyes, lips and faces at odds with painted porcelain vaginas.

The impression is one of great delicacy and beauty, but there is something about them I find a bit repulsive. I would have no issues with these as sculptures or ornaments. As  dolls to be handled and dressed, I don't like them,and can't work out whether or not there is something  inappropriate  about what started as a child's toy being turned into a plaything for adults, or if  I am generally oversensitive and a bit freaked out by dolls on every level.
http://www.enchanteddoll.com/galleries1/#all

Here is one of the talismans from the Horniman museum, another doll for adults, a poppet carried in World War I,probably for protection. I cannot imagine a greater contrast. And yet it too, has a slight sinister air to it. It must be just me and dolls.