The Doll Thing, excerpts from my thesis

Hey y'all-

Gerard asked me to post excerpts from a chapter from my thesis to share with those of you who care to read it, along with some photos of my recent works...in truth, I was undecided about what excerpts to include so most of the chapter is here in its entirety, although I will not be offended if you choose not to read all the way through.

Enjoy.
Melissa




The Doll Thing


At a time when everyone was still intent on giving us a quick and reassuring answer, the doll was the first to inflict on us that tremendous silence (larger than life) which was later to come to us repeatedly out of space, whenever we approached the frontiers of our existence at any point.
Rainier Maria Rilke, Some Reflections on Dolls, 1914

Reading Rilke’s Some Reflections on Dolls encapsulated the thoughts I’ve had in my mind for some time regarding my own work. At first these creatures mimicked the animals that I live with; it tickled me to see the live animals interact with the imperfectly created ones, the border between the real and the imagined coalescing was an exciting discovery. The natural progression went from animals to surrogate humans, yet, while I was busy lamenting the disconnect in relationships between humans I had neglected to address the very interesting connection between man and doll. Rilke’s reminder of how children play-acted relationships with their dolls, their surrogate humans, brought to mind an image of an adult play-acting with dolls to address the issues they are confronted with but either refuse or are afraid to enact with human counterparts. My creatures materialize into agents of retreat when the reality of human life is too dangerous or when the simple act of confronting the truth is unbearable.

These dolls, or creatures, are not the same as childhood dolls in the sense that I carry them around with me like a makeshift friend wherever I go, they are not “lived unwearyingly with energies not their own”, nor are they “dragged into the heavy folds of illnesses, present in dreams, [or] involved in the fatalities of nights of fever” (Rilke 120). Yet, I create them like Geppetto created Pinocchio in place of a boy-child of his own. What is the impulse behind these fantastical creatures’ creation? In some ways I believe their formation has resulted from mounting frustration about cultural forces that are beyond my control. Much like Hans Bellmer created his first eroticized doll in response to world events that were threatening his everyday life, I feel as if my primary impulse to make these creatures is my irritation with a world that is increasingly consumer driven, shallow, and complacent (Lichtenstein 1). The Bush administration’s policies have left me feeling repressed and paranoid about speaking out about acts that are truly fascist. Perhaps it is naïve to lame the blame on the administration’s doorstep, but with technology advanced to the point where we can literally be in communication with anyone, anywhere, George Orwell’s prophetic warnings seem apt. (We already know that our government is listening to our phone conversations.) When you are unhappy with the establishment and the status quo you are left with two choices: you can either rise up against it, or if you feel powerless and overwhelmed you can retreat into yourself. For the time being, I have retreated into the void of silence and these creatures have emerged as mute witnesses to my conscientious objection.



That some of these creatures have strong relations to others and interact and exist in their own quiet space is one of their characteristics. That I search for an environment for them in the real world of humans is another aspect of their existence akin to childhood dolls that have been loved. I keep thinking of them as an alternate to humans – perfectly empty vessels without original sin, yet imperfect in their formation, as if they have been punished without doing anything.

One of the primary impulses for making them is an overall disgust I have with the human race. I feel a greater affinity with animals and certainly with individuals, but am at odds with the interests of so-called mass society. Making an alternate, yet imperfect family is comforting somehow; it offers no solution at how to deal with reality other than to provide an escape from it. Exiled voluntarily from the world of humans, at least mentally, these creatures are an attempt to amend for our garish, barbaric ways. My level of success is uncertain, which only confirms my belief that humans fail to do anything correctly. These creatures were born from a need to understand human tragedy and pathos, but they themselves are warm, funny, and disturbing. Perhaps that is the reflection of human interaction for me.

Yet, this seems to be an oversimplification of them as well. It is not as if I am a child who needs an imaginary, silent friend to feel safe with, but when exploring childhood fears, traumas, and insecurities carried forth into adulthood these creatures become intruders from youth, the monsters of maturity taunting me to grow up and join them. These are the nightmares of childhood made manifest – the things I didn’t understand and yet haunted me still; demons made a little less frightening and a bit more manageable, but still powerful. To put them in real human environments is to assert their existence in a world that is not metaphysical, but is present and organic.

To make dolls as an adult poses a question different from the one asked of children about why they possess dolls and live out lives for them. Perhaps an adult who makes dolls does so out of a desire for a child of their own, so they may love something outside of themselves. Kate Linker, in examining the differences in the role-playing phenomena of both children and adults, states, “children project alternative identities onto surfaces, imaginatively painting a man’s face on the moon to warm the eerie coldness of the night sky…Adults extend such empathetic projection onto objects in consumption” (Linker 36). It is also interesting to note that in consumption, adults are gaining dominance by possession of a material product, whereas with dolls, children gain dominance through assertion of character, because otherwise, “had [they] surrendered [themselves] to it, there would have then have been no one there at all” (Rilke 121).




Perhaps making dolls, as an adult, is an alternative to the traditional love affair most people have with their possession, their house, car, etc. There is an act of nurturing involved in the creation of a doll – the act of dressing it and of bringing it into locations that could be interpreted as an adult playing out the role of the parent to see if it suits them. It reminds me of the Home Economics project they make teenagers do in high school where they are forced to carry around a fragile egg for several weeks so that they begin to understand the magnanimity of having a child. Because an adult is more emotionally developed than a child it seems odd to see them carrying on with a doll in a manner similar to one. Children are trying out roles when they play with their dolls also, but do not have the life experience to make this interaction seem weird or inappropriate.

I think there is something a little sad about someone who prefers the silence of the creatures they make to real human interaction, but maybe that’s not really the case. Maybe the few real relationships the maker has is enough and the dolls fill in the gap, becoming almost spiritual in their silence. Maybe they take up the space of God or meditation in the consuming act of designing them, dreaming them, of stuffing their limbs and sewing them up. The joy of seeing them complete is so fulfilling that they add to the whole rather than subtract from it. As their creator I am very fond of them, but I also easily forget them or love them a little less as time wears on, much as I imagine God did after he created man. These creatures, in their way, are God’s unwanted children, playthings that have been discarded after a brief, intense loving.

The task of representing humans in their entire complex and frustrating forms is a difficult one. How do we make something that can be offered up as a token of what we are capable and incapable of simultaneously? Are not dolls surrogate creatures that have our likeness but are unfamiliar? I suppose it is not entirely possible to incorporate every aspect of humanness in one particular object, but rather to approach humanity through many, and hope that through their existence with each other, they create a whole, imperfect being that reminds us of ourselves.

These creatures are out of place; they seem to have no true home, no real environment, which enhances this feeling of displacement. I think it would be very beautiful and poignant in a way to only have them exist physically in a room that is more fantastic than real and have them only exist in the real world through photography, so that they are perpetually held in this kind of imagination purgatory, not really living except as dreams that sometimes creep out into the light of human existence.

by Melissa Nannen



Bibliography

Howard, Jan. Laurie Simmons: The Music of Regret. Baltimore, MD: The Baltimore
Museum of Art, 1997.

Lichtenstein, Therese. Behind Closed Doors: The Art of Hans Bellmer. Berkeley, CA:
The University of California Press, 2001.

Linker, Kate. Laurie Simmons: Walking, Talking, Lying. New York: Aperture
Foundation, 2005.

Rilke, Rainier Maria. Rodin and Other Prose Pieces. London: Quartet Books, 1986.