All the carvings beyond Jesse are of the little German ceramic doctor's diagnostic doll that I found in New Hampshire. I was trying to pare down to the something essential in the figure that makes it compelling to me. I let myself recarve lines that seemed wrong; I experimented with varying the thickness of lines; I used basic measuring and estimating and comparing of one part to the others-- dropping plumb lines, shooting lasers across, I let mistakes stand. By the fourth carving I felt like I was drawing.
Then I switched to wood, which I enjoy using much more than rubber. I carved the print on the right in a small (3 x 3") scrap of wood very quickly and enjoyed the feel of wood under my tool much more than the slightly bouncy feel of rubber. And when I printed the woodcut, I saw right away the connection between these figures and a ceramic bead that I've had for a long time (5293). The bead is an interpretation of the c 25,000 B.C.E. Venus of Willendorf from what is now Austria, a 4 1/8" statue that is considered to be a votive figure representing fertility. Well, the doctor doll could almost be considered an anti-Venus of W. figure, since she lacks breasts and a big belly and more attention is paid to her face than to her body, which lacks all reference to fertility but looks more like a slightly pudgy child's body. Woman as powerful creator and nourisher of life vs woman who can't nurture and whose face is valued more than her body. Reading too much into it, probably, but the repeated carving and scratching, the dialogue with the block while searching for the essential in the doctor doll woman opened the way to this comparison.
no, i don't think you're reading too much into it. whether it was intentional on the part of either maker, these two women are antithetical and representative of their cultural origins.
ReplyDeleteand you've really captured the differernce--
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