November 8: Once Upon a Time...

As much as I enjoy creating beautiful artwork, I also find great satisfaction when making work that deals with issues that are important to me. Sometimes, art is created to confront, or bring something ugly out into the light.

This piece was created for a show titled Beauty and the Beast. The juror allowed the artist to interpret this title in any way he/she chose. For me, it meant tackling a repellent subject matter, while trying to create a work of art that somehow had a push pull appeal aesthetically - a sense of beauty and repulsion in one. It was a difficult piece to create, and probably as the viewer, isn't exactly pleasant to spend much time with. It's a subject found hidden behind many seemingly happy home's front doors, and not easy to discuss, but one that shouldn't be ignored. It's about child abuse and neglect.

The artwork itself is made with a frame work of found branches of wood, sanded smoothly, and easy to approach from the outside, but has thorns inserted that point inward to where the book sits. You have to reach into the thorny interior to bring it out and read.

I stained the rice paper pages to look like gauze, used for wounds. Inside the left hand pages each have the alphabet stamped on them, while the right hand pages have information and statistics about child abuse transfered onto them. Also on the right hand pages, overlaying the statistical information, I found Mother Goose nursery rhymes, of the most horrific nature, and transposed them over the transfers, using embroidery, stamping, metal work, etc. Every few pages you'll find the words "Nobody Knows" collaged in and surrounded by thorns, which happened to be the title of a movie that was opening while I was creating this piece - and fit this subject matter all too well.

Following the video, I have left you with links to resources of help, and below that I have transcribed the most horrifying Mother Goose rhymes I could find, to use within the book.

Places to get and give help:

• PREVENT CHILD ABUSE AMERICA
  
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• HEALTHY TEEN NETWORK
  
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• NATIONAL FOSTER CARE COALITION
  
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• CHILD ADVOCATES
  
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• INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR PREVENTION OF CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT
  
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• YES I CAN
  
• 
  
• PARENTS ANONYMOUS
  

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Mother Goose Rhymes

There was an Old Woman

There was an old woman

who lived in a shoe,

she had so many children

she didn't know what to do.

She gave them all broth

without any bread

and whipped them all soundly

and sent them to bed.

Fears and Tears

Tommy's tears and

Mary's fears

will make them old

before their years.

Myself

as I walked by myself,

and I talked to myself,

myself said unto me:

"look to they self,

take care of thyself,

for nobody cares for thee."

I answered myself,

and said to myself

in the same repartee:

"look to thyself,

or not to thyself,

thy self same thing will be."

1 for sorrow

2 for joy

3 for girl

4 for a boy,

5 for silver

6 for gold

7 for secrets

never to be told

For Every Evil

For every evil under the sun

there is a remedy or there is none.

If there be one, seek till you find it:

if there is none, never mind it.

Good Advice

Come when you're called,

do what you're bid,

shut the door after you,

and never be chid.

Cry Baby

cry baby cry,

put your finger

in your eye,

tell your mother

it wasn't I.

Baby Baby

Baby, baby, naughty baby,

Hush you squalling thing, I say.

Peace this moment, peace, or maybe

Bonaparte will pass this way.

Baby, baby, he's a giant,

Tall and black as Rouen steeple,

And he breakfasts dines, rely on it,

Every day on naughty people.

Baby, baby, if he hears you

As he gallops past the house,

Limb from limb at once he'll tear you,

Just as pussy tears a mouse.

And he'll beat you, beat you, beat you,

And he'll beat you to a pap,

And he'll eat you, eat you, eat you,

Every morsel, snap, snap, snap.

Dreams

Friday night's dreams

on Saturday told,

is sure to come true,

be it never so old.