The Corset Work
Gracefulness of Motion is Delightful © 2003
Cover Vest, Antique Child Wrap
around Vest with plastic buttons
Height: 9” (including straps)
Width closed: 8 1/2”
Interior Cover Corset
Width opened: 30”
Interior Dolls. Handmade with cotton fabric, with digital iron on transfer images.
Machine and hand stitched dolls connected with satin ribbon.
Height: 4”
Width: 3”
Total length 13 dolls joined together: 44”
Dolls front side detail
Dolls back side detail
If you would like any hi-res images of these photos, or if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me: tamarstone@pipeline.com
Images Copyright © 2006 by Tamar Stone. All Rights Reserved.
No images may be reproduced without the expressed written permission of the artist.
Growing up I never had much interest with dolls, and consequently, never played with them that much as a child. I’m beginning to believe this is one of the reasons I am fascinated with them now, and consequently they have been slowing becoming incorporated into my work.
By working with these newly constructed paper dolls I now feel that I have some “bodily control.”
While wearing the body braces, I didn’t feel that I had complete control over my body; by creating these dolls, I feel that a type of control has been restored to me (although even if not my own
physical self, then at least some facsimile of another type of self).
In addition to not having much interest in the dolls, I also wasn’t interested in reading as a child.
At that time, I thought that if something was in print it must be true – why else would someone print it? and I felt extremely overwhelmed. Of course I now realize that is not the case, and that the power of advertising is something that has had a hold over us since the day of its inception. For these reasons,
I find myself fascinated with advertising text making the claims it does for women’s bodies.
It is these interests that lead me to create this first of the doll book series. The other books in this series can be seen at “What to Wear, Vol. 1” and “What to Wear, Vol. 2.”
