A mournful photo series titled “Losing Self”. For one to be born, the first one had to die. Destruction is a form of creation.
In a clumsy freak accident, I dropped and fractured the porcelain head of White Peacock right before shipping her to the new owner…..😱😭😩…. It was devastating, as each head is roughly 80-100 hours of labour.😖 I was distraught over losing a beautiful face and so much of my time, and took the rest of the day off to cry into a bag of chips on the couch, while comfort-eating them ALL. Then I set out to re-create what was lost and improve on it, despite the setback. The second face turned out even better, and both I and the new owner of the doll loved it!
Before shipping the final doll to the happy collector, I did a mournful photoshoot with both heads of Peacock - the original and the new one, to create something new and beautiful from a painful loss. The whole experience was intense and emotional. It had brought back some other painful losses from the past, and it was cathartic in the end. When life hurls lemons at us, we must make lemonade.
The new Peacock head is beautiful, but for her to be born, the first one had to die. It felt like losing self, and then rebuilding it again. Sometimes for us to become better, our old selves have to break first. Destruction is form of creation.
