BESS
2020 | Vintage Dressmakers Dummy | Copper
When I was young, I found an old dressmaker's dummy in the attic of my childhood home. I found it sculptural, and as a young adult I carried from apartment to apartment. I called it Bess after the intimidating elderly woman who had sold my parents the house. It eventually got lost in my travels.
When I saw this dummy in a flea market, so similar to the original Bess, I had a visceral and emotional reaction. Something about this form-the wire, the snaps, the ability to contract in size and shape, and to take up more or less space as needed... the way the waist can be made narrow or wide, the bust expanded...it reminded me of the lusty and illicit feelings I had when playing with a Barbie Doll.
I placed a copper nude with similar Barbie dimensions inside the form to represent the contorting women sometimes do to fit into a mold made popular by the dictates of a male and media dominated society. The dummy is literally confining the form and keeping it in “perfect” proportions even while it has the ability to expand, to grow thick in the middle.