ODDBODIES Exhibit

"Extra Hands Available"

These three pieces are currently on show at the Holland Area Arts Council (www.hollandarts.org) through Feb. 15 in the "Oddbodies" exhibit, an invitational of 10 West Michigan artists.  It's a small show in the Armstrong Gallery, but I am so honored and delighted to have been asked by Lorma Freestone, the Executive Director, to be a part of it.  She came to me last June and said, "We're going to do this ugly doll show for the holidays."  

Ugly dolls!  Me?!  Yicks!  Not me.  I had worked so hard for so long to do such lovely, serene, contemplative, pretty faces.  Well, I looked on the arts council website in October or so and discovered, fortunately, that it had been named "Oddbodies" with the description, "A total departure from the precious - this doll exhibit features figures created from the darker side of our artists' imaginations."  Now there was something I thought I could wrap my mind around, but not the dark side.  I've realized I don't have a dark side; maybe a weird or odd side, but not dark.  It still took me days of drawing and grumbling to realize that all those bags of heads and bags of body parts were finally going to be of use.  So, voila!  And, along with my photo transfer self-portrait pieces where I imagined myself in new bodies (longer legs for one!), such as "Self-Portrait in Pink Zippers", these attempts were unsuccessful, but who knows?  Maybe my next attempts will be prettier and not so odd.

I should also mention that Mary Sundstrom (Program Director at HAAC) has her newest series of "The 7 Deadly Sins" (wickedly funny and very apt) along with pieces that are from the arts council's permanent collection such as my good friend Alice Breese's handmade paper torsos, "Who Will Respond."

"My New Body:
Attempt #1"

"My New Body: Attempt #2"