Influences

It was bugging me, she really reminded me of someone. I make a doll with a general body-shape plan but the features, clothes and I suppose character just seem to make themselves. I was curious about this lady, she'd undergone much plastic surgery and clothes changes. Then I pulled out this book from the shelf and there she was, or rather he was. "Counting on an Elephant" (Jill McDonald- text and pictures) was a favourite book of mine that Ruben and I have rediscovered. It's totally trippy, about a boy who goes to buy ginger at the corner shop in the fog, meets cats playing Hornpipes, football frogs, and finally the great Yabbit in the sky, all on top of a giant elephant! Why it hasn't survived I don't know, it's an excellent visual read (and we've made the recipe the book begins with and they're moorish brittle biscuits).

I asked myself the same questions with this next lady, and though she doesn't jump out as anyone in particular I realised her cheeks and hair were reminiscent of Fiona Dalton's (Hop skip jump) dolls.

It's interesting how the subconscious must work, how we absorb images and they surface in unexpected layers. Plagiarism I would define as a conscious copying, but how do you regulate influences of which you are unaware? When I used to play violin and compose pieces I would be mortified to find that a tune I was so pleased with, had lifted whole chunks of a melody from some buried listening memory. In a phase of portrait painting I did a whole series in the style of other artists, but that very awareness and change of subject matter validated the exercise as a kind of homage or artistic dialogue. It's interesting as a retrospective process to look for connections, but recently I find myself censoring projects or ideas before they have begun because I think they have been overly influenced by another artist/crafter. The proliferation and ease of access to images that the Internet affords can be both nourishing and stifling. I find myself trawling through images on sites like flickr only to feel impotent afterwards. I think I need to look less and explore inside more; not worry about if what I am doing is like someone else, only be concerned if it is meaningful to me. Yes I will be influenced, but let myself break through that, go with it, til I reach the other side where it becomes my own. That's what I'm telling myself anyway.

And from my trawling... I found these wonderful nursery rhyme inspired dolls by Elsie Marely.