Let's call them Poppets
I believe in the alchemical magic of transformation that exists in creativity. Any time we create we are making magic. I transform cloth into what I have referred to as Dolls, but that I'm now choosing to call 'Poppets'. A Poppet is defined as a small figure of a human being, and they have been used in different ways through all of recorded history. In this instance, I'm choosing to define a Poppet as a cloth figure of a person that is used to honor, remember and celebrate them, and also to honor you and your experience.
I make Poppets of women. History has vilified, hidden and erased the lives of so many of us. Reducing us to two dimensional characters. The Saint, the Queen, the Harlot, the Murderess, the Victim, the Witch, the Temptress. But we know, don't we, that each of those women was a full person? She lived a childhood and grew to be a woman. She lived in a world where she had little agency. Or, perhaps she had great power, and had to fight tooth and nail to hold it.
I make Poppets in order to remind us of the wholeness of our lives, the strengths we carry, of our ability to examine the stories we tell about ourselves, and the power we have to change those stories as we move forward. To choose, to remember, to honor. I tell the stories of women we have collectively forgotten. I tell the stories of women who we think we know. I manifest Poppets from memory and history and the desire to honor women. To honor you.
Grief and Mourning are central to FloMadeMourning. I will continue, always, to make Poppets that represent our grief, our love, and our memories of the people we long for. I make Mourning Poppets to give us comfort, to make our Grief, which is felt, into our Mourning, which is the outer representation of those feelings. To make beautiful homages of the women whose deaths have left a hole in us. To make sacred Poppets of the Mourning we carry.
I make Poppets of women. History has vilified, hidden and erased the lives of so many of us. Reducing us to two dimensional characters. The Saint, the Queen, the Harlot, the Murderess, the Victim, the Witch, the Temptress. But we know, don't we, that each of those women was a full person? She lived a childhood and grew to be a woman. She lived in a world where she had little agency. Or, perhaps she had great power, and had to fight tooth and nail to hold it.
I make Poppets in order to remind us of the wholeness of our lives, the strengths we carry, of our ability to examine the stories we tell about ourselves, and the power we have to change those stories as we move forward. To choose, to remember, to honor. I tell the stories of women we have collectively forgotten. I tell the stories of women who we think we know. I manifest Poppets from memory and history and the desire to honor women. To honor you.
Grief and Mourning are central to FloMadeMourning. I will continue, always, to make Poppets that represent our grief, our love, and our memories of the people we long for. I make Mourning Poppets to give us comfort, to make our Grief, which is felt, into our Mourning, which is the outer representation of those feelings. To make beautiful homages of the women whose deaths have left a hole in us. To make sacred Poppets of the Mourning we carry.