12” x 9 ¾” x 1”
A self-portrait doll made by a Civil War union soldier amputee while recovering in the hospital; mended and repaired with a modern day surgeon’s surgical needle and thread; new pant leg material made from a modern day soldier’s uniform; cast leg made from femur bone dust and prosthetic alginate; and treated with Balm of a 1000 Foreign Fields; melted shrapnel and bullet lead; vegetable ivory, collagen, cold cast steel and zinc, polyester resin, rust
This piece is part of a series I consider “time-collaborations,” where I attempt to build on past efforts to heal and repair. In an era before PTSD was fully recognized, war nurses were among the first caregivers to use arts and crafts with patients to aid in their recovery, beginning a tradition of valuing art as a way to address physical and psychological wounds. In this case, a soldier was coming to terms with his amputated limb, reflected in the doll as a symbol of his bodily loss. I constructed a new limb for him and added new pant leg material. Additionally, this piece was originally conceived to accompany another sculpture, Balm of a 1000 Foreign Fields, a homemade ointment I created to address his pain and the way such traumas ripple forward through time. The balm uses folk medicine techniques and is applied beneath the doll’s pant leg.