Alberta University of the Arts

Babies, Witches, and Death:

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Void

Kitty deSorcy

DRWG 451

Alana Bartol

April 6, 2020
 Introduction

It’s a Sunday morning. I wake up, scroll through Twitter, hate myself, piss, hate myself,

look in the mirror, and once again hate myself. This is a strange introduction, and it’s a bit of an

exaggeration as well (I only really hate myself about half of the time). I feel as if it’s important to

be honest with my current state of existence. In the end it’s the monotony and stress of modern

living and being isolated while never being alone that really started me on thinking about the

things that have lead to my current practice. Truthfully, I am terrified. I am consistently very,

very afraid.

As a queer and mentally ill artist I hope to explore feelings of aimlessness and fear in the

modern world through traditionally feminine and innocent mediums. By using fibre arts and

dolls to present situations of the effects of trauma and illness I want to build intimate

environments that allow for a lighthearted look at less than desirable situations.

Death and Fear

Fear in itself is a survival mechanism, it protects us from what is threatening to hurt us (or a the

very least what our brains decide what seems to be a threat). Stories and story telling throughout

history have been used to teach fear1. These learned fears dictate and teach one another to wary

of what is considered immoral or dangerous by the use of association, implying choices or things

lead to pain or death. Death is a root of a lot of fear, it’s a human survival instinct. What if you’re

not afraid of death? What if you long for it? In general, many fears are routed in the possibility of

death or pain, and the involved human behaviours are believed to stem from the section of the

brain known as the amygdala. The fear of death (or what could cause death) has been an

1In Michael Steven’s docuseries Mindfield, the episode What is the Scariest Thing? explores why and
how human being experience fear.
important part of human survival, an while some of these fears are present from birth (an innate

aversion) others must be taught. This is where storytelling comes in, and the goals of fairytales

and folklore becomes more apparent.

In reading “The Sexed Self and the Mortal Body” as written by Sara Heinämaa, which

compares points of view of multiple philosopher’s looks on death in relation to gender

(particularly Beauvoir, Kierkgaard, and Nietzsche). She discusses the differences in how death

affects genders in worldly and other worldly senses, as well as ways in which humans come to

terms with Death as a reality. Growing up, in some ways, can be synonymous with dying. With

every breathe we as humans take, we are another moment closer to the grave. If one was to think

of a lifespan as a circle, then birth and death exist next to each other, neither really acts as the

opposite of the other. This concept, for the most part, is the core idea that moves my art practice.

The miniatures and vignettes I have come to create, have an agency and life in them, they

become both my children and a slice of myself at the same time. They are the toys to be played

with and the children that want to play.

Connections between my work and the story telling elements of it along with themes of

death are really important to me. I’ve started looking at how death and grief is represented in

modern media as well as media of the past (ie. fairytales). Death as a character changes from

culture to culture, and it’s from English and German tradition where the male (or masculinely

coded) Grim Reaper has come to be. However in many other countries, the representation of

death has been traditionally female, particularly in many slavic countries. Female death

characters still appear in modern media, but less often and personified in drastically different
ways, often where the masculine death is forceful and vigilant, the feminine death has a loving

attitude and an appreciation for her own work and the life that is now gone.

My practice has a focus of materiality, in particular needle felted wool. Fibre arts in

general have been pigeon holed as a feminine way of making, which is something that I honestly

find quite funny. There is definite violence in many fibre arts, and needle felting can quite

possibly be considered the most violent. By taking an organic animal grown material (ie. merino

wool) and forming it into a new object through repetitive stabbing, there is a brutal nature in the

“birth” of my work. There’s a violence in all the work, a contrast between childishness and

violence. There is a ritualistic nature to my making, and I often feel like a fairytale witch when I

go through the process of building and making. I feel an aspect in growth in making, being able

to leave a piece of myself behind to exist as a sort of idol to experience emotions and sensations

for me so I am able to move past it. They exist themselves as children but also as beings made

out of my childish nature.

Trauma and Childhood

In relation to my child-like sense of self, I should explain that I often feel like a tall child

myself, it’s quite possible that I’m emotionally stunted in ways. In coming to terms with this I

have used making, as stated earlier, as a way of growing. However it’s also a way of letting

myself be a child, and it’s this reason why I consider my work as toys. Toys as objects exist in a

bizarre space when it comes to human use, and a successful toy often relies heavily on the child

playing with it to use their imagination in order to fully function. This stretch of thought and act

of building narrative is what I find so beautiful as fascinating as a child, and being able to

explore trauma and adult existence in a way that feels like playing allows for both me and my
work to exist in a space in between spaces. I’ve found there have been times when it’s been

really painful to make work in the past. However, working this way, I feel like I’m giving myself

something back.

In childhood I saw a variety of psychiatric health professionals and I was a given a multitude of

diagnoses, particularly one of Borderline Personality Disorder when I had just turned eighteen.

This disorder carries with it an ever persistent stigma, ranging from oversimplified ideas of traits

(ie. being manipulative, violent tendencies towards the self or others, attention seeking, etc) to

even some religious sects believing the disorder is caused by demonic possession. I have a desire

to make work that humanizes what I experience, explore the trauma and grief that led to my

condition, and my relationship to these perceptions and current culture. I make my own toys to

give to the child-me that needed them.

I really enjoy making these things, I get a lot from doing it, I love them so much and they

honestly are my children. In a class last semester, a fellow student called me a “Witch Mother

Mr. Rodgers”, and from that point I’ve found a funny clarity in my practice and a way to identify

in relation to my work. This is where the idea of my work being “cute” really comes into play.

“Cuteness” in art is often a derogatory term, meant to infantilize and trivialize the work,

particularly when it comes to fibre works and miniature. At one time I was desperate for my

work to be taken seriously, but now I find the child-like nature of my work is not a bad thing, but

it just adds to the themes I look to explore. Cute does not have to be an antithesis of important.
 Fairytales and Storytelling

I find my works to be fairytales in themselves, although in more modern or ambiguous

setting. Whether it be a young Baba Yaga2 tending to her chicken legged home, or an old woman

burying the body of her late husband in the yard of her house, there is a play between the morbid

and the serene. Particularly I’ve been inspired by Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber: and

Other Stories. A collection of short stories that are gothic rewritings of classic fairytales. The

stories are written in a way that is descriptive and grotesque, generally exploring disturbing and

tantalizing themes of death and sexuality. Her work is especially poignant with me and my art

practice, as her tales are tragic and horrifying but with such a sense of irony that it becomes an

access point for the reader. I have to admit that I love telling stories and my admiration for story

tellers throughout history has definitely influenced my work. However as narrative as my work

can be, I want to keep things open to interpretation. Little Red Riding Hood was tricked into

eating her grandmothers teeth, but why?

The act of needle felting is a violent way of making, and the relationship between

violence and creation is something that really fascinating. I enjoy looking at felting as a process

similar to birth; violent, painful, and even bloody on occasion. This is something I aim for in my

own work, the use of humour and fairytales to explore themes of trauma and existentialism.

Particularly when it comes to my figures, I find them telling me their stories before I can make

one for them. When I’ve tried to force roles onto them, their resistance has come through in the

final works. It’s important that I let them speak to me, to tell me who they are and what roles

they are willing to play in the theatrical acts we make together..

2Baba Yaga is a slavic bogeyman-like character. Her name roughly translates to “wicked grandmother”
 I began to tell stories my hands through making, because there was life there, begging to

be born.
 Works Cited

Carter, Angela. The Bloody Chamber: and Other Stories. Penguin Books, 2011.

Doughty, Caitlin. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: and Other Lessons From the Crematory.

Thorpe, 2016.

Aster, Ari, director. Hereditary. A24 Films, 2018

Schott, Robin May., and Sara Heinämaa. Birth, Death, and Femininity: Philosophies of

Embodiment. Indiana University Press, 2010.

Stevens, Michael. “What is the Scariest Thing?” Youtube, 2019

Eggers, Robert, director. The Witch. A24 Films, 2015.

Roach, Mary. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. W.W. Norton, 2003.

Stevens, Sufjan. Carrie & Lowell. Asthmatic Kitty Records, 2015.

Sondheim, Stephen. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Broadway. 1979.

Ellis, Lindsay, creator. Loose Cannon: Death. Youtube, 22 Mar. 2017.

Warner, Marina. From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers. Farrar,

Straus and Giroux, 1994.