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Description

Multi-media installation. The doll (a) consists of a wooden artist’s maquette body with brain-tanned deer hide head (no facial features), hand coverings, and dress (with fringes at sleeves and decorated with English and Cree text written in pink gel-pen ink), pink and yellow cut-glass seed beads sewn onto dress and moccasin boots, horse hair braids with white satin ribbon, ncecklace of porcupine quill, brass bead and sinew, clam shell earrings, and a belt with large brass buttons. The doll sits in a chair (part b) constructed of deer hide, wood, and sinew, and face a small LCD screen, which fastens to a wooden base (part c), and plays a video loop, with video and audio footage created by the artist.

Narrative

From artist's website, for work titled "Imperfect Doll": "A traditional plains-style, faceless doll sits in front of a TV, 'watching' looped images of her own creation. Three affirmative sentences – two in English and one in Cree syllabics - repeat themselves in very small handwriting over the surface of her dress. The first statement is “I am perfect, just as I am”. This sentence is accompanied by its Cree translation (something close to “I'm in a place of beauty, just as I am now”). The statement “There is no word for perfect in Cree” is also written on the dress. On the tv, both an elder and a young girl say the phrase repeatedly in Cree, accompanied by the laughter of young girls. Placed in this context, the doll’s 'facelessness,' traditionally employed to help develop childrens' imaginations, expands to symbolize both heightened forms of perception and the inability to see oneself clearly. Traditionally, dolls are an integral part of a girl’s personal and communal education, and as such 'Imperfect Doll' also affirms the important history of cultural teachings and the creative acts of women. The doll and her untranslatable statement symbolize both contrasting cultural perceptions, and a gentle movement toward constant personal growth and self acceptance."