This installation was inspired by a found vintage studio photographic portrait of a young Victorian Woman.

Needing inspiration for my final Studio Arts course at the University of Guelph, Ontario Canada, I made the decision to get to know this woman who I have named Fanny and to define who she was by just slowing down my creative process and dissecting and assembling her image many times in many formats. 

Before long I seemed to be having an intimate relationship with Her and began to try and get behind the mask of Her theatrical self represented in this image.

Using multiple mediums I chipped away at finding pieces of Her, modelling a fragmented personality that is motionless and stagnant, but has a history of being.

Each of the elements I explored to represent Her parts, sometimes led to the domestic crafting that can happen using needle and thread.  And considering the needle piercing and marking Her, I also explored, tearing, burning and other destructive processes to see how She would react.  This brought a new question to the project of how I can I mend Her parts?   This is not a question that will be answered as I feel Fanny’s abstract personality will be ever evolving.

I realized with this project for my first term of the Specialized Studio course, that all I accomplished was turn Fanny into a continuous puzzle of parts and there seems to always be a piece missing.

During my second term I kept trying to find that missing piece of this woman, and accomplished more abstracted fragments through new to me creative technology tools.  I used photogrammetry software to get a 360 degree image of some or her parts which I then took into 3D modelling software and manipulated her personality even more – 3D printing the results.

I have now found a new direction for my creative making.  This project is a way for me to capture and document not only the physical conditions of womanhood, but to construct a sense of Her as a person.  This work and its continuation is a narrative with a beginning but no end.