Hanging

"I like your art," my friend said yesterday when she popped around to see if I was still alive (I was, but - after previous email - I was hitting things and swearing rather violently). "But I`ll tell you something: I`m so not bringing my teddy bear round for a visit."
"Fair enough," I said, and went back to working out what in my house really needed breaking.

I don`t have a death wish, contrary to popular belief: and I don`t hold any particularly vindictive feelings towards toys either. Frankly, if I had a death wish, I probably wouldn`t draw pictures all about it: I`d like to think I would be a little more subtle, and draw a little less attention to it. Because if I had a death wish, I`d want to get on with it as quietly and as efficiently as possible: not allude to it wherever possible in ink and pencil and little phone stickers I bought from a shop in Fukuoka.

So I don`t have a death wish. I do, however, have a slight fascination with hanging, for a number of different reasons, of varying importance. Which I am going to clarify, mainly to put my mum`s mind at rest and stop her visiting. ("Holly," she said. "If you keep hanging things in pictures I`m flying out there and I`m not going to come back until you`ve stopped.")

First of all, it`s aesthetically pleasing. That straight line is pleasant; I enjoy drawing it. It gives height to a composition, and a certain geometric pleasantness, and that`s all there is to say about it.

Second of all, it`s a nice way of getting rid of a bit of anger without actually harming anyone. Hey cute teddy in my head, you can say: come here and attach yourself to this here rope and dangle for eternity. And - afterwards - you immediately feel a little bit better, and nobody had to hurt for it (although my teddy, Malachi, does edge away on the bed whenever I get cross now; I`ve seen him do it).

Third of all, it means something. For instance, in the picture of the teddy, it`s inspired by the Japanese quote: to get something, you must first give up something. If you want adulthood, you must first give up the things that you loved as a child. In the picture of the Blythe doll, it`s about the irony of Good Luck (Ganbatte in Japanese): the doll is hanging from a tree of four leaf clovers.

Fourth of all, when you kill something it means that you can start again; from the death of one thing becomes the start of something new. I kill things in my art so that I can rise again from them. Even if it`s only ever a tiny, momentary kind of rebirth.

But fifth of all, and absolutely most importantly, it`s because I`m fascinated by the throat and neck as a sort of metaphorically physical link between brain and heart. It feels like where - if anywhere - the two collide; it`s where the emotions travel up to your mouth and brain; where the thoughts travel down to your feelings. (Or, in my case, don`t.) It`s the most vulnerable, sensitive part of the body, and it`s both the lovers` part - the part that is kissed and slept next to, nestled together - and the part used traditionally (in literature and outside of it) to kill; a slit, or a rope, or a stranglehold. And if the heart is the metaphorical representation of the emotions of love, and the head is the metaphorical representation of the reasoning of love, then the neck has to be the metaphorical representation of where the two collide.

So I hang things. My heart and my mind are always warring - always communicating, always fighting, always at odds - and most of my unhappiness comes from their unanimous hatred of each other; from my mind`s inability to understand for a single second the way my heart feels, or from my heart`s inability to listen for a minute to what my mind says. They never agree, and so - when I`m stuck between the two arguing sides, both constantly trying to make me listen to them, both tearing me apart between them - hanging something seems like the best way to make it stop. To take away the lovers` part of me - or of the unfortunate toy - and cut off the source that causes the mind such pain, and the source that gives the heart so much confusion. And the rope becomes simply a symbol; a way of finally taking control of the two, and suspending them both in the air: separated and - for the first time - permanently joined together.

So it`s not a morbid wish at all, mum, and it`s nothing for you to worry about. In fact, it`s the opposite. I kill off the pain caused by the fight between heart and mind so that I can start again; I let go of one thing so that I can grab hold of another. And even if I struggle to do that properly in every day life, at least I can still do it metaphorically in my drawings.

"I want one," my friend said just before she left last night, "even if they`re a bit creepy. But can you kill off something else other than a teddy bear, perhaps? I like teddy bears."
"Sure," I said, ripping up bits of paper for no reason and remembering the animals He loves best. "How about a badger or a duck?"
"Works for me," my friend said. "Give them a nice, merry send-off."

So I will. And then, perhaps, my teddy bear will sit next to me on the bed tonight with a little less sadness on his little face.

And perhaps - afterwards - I will sit next to him with just a little less sadness on mine.