Sourcing fabric for my art doll

All of the materials in this image came from a local army and navy store; surplus bandages, dressings, and medical equipment. 

I’m drawn to their potential for care, their readiness to repair something broken. Using them feels like performing a kind of makeshift surgery: an attempt to mend, to reassemble, to give purpose to objects that never fulfilled their original one. These unused bandages, made for soldiers who might have needed them, can now take on a different task, helping me to process and converse with the idea of healing itself through my art doll piece.

I already feel excitement about working with these materials, stitching together multiple histories; personal, political, material. It's given me pause for thought on my own instinct to fix, even when the fixing is impossible. Wrapping, binding, and layering these bandages in my art doll sculpture would be both futile and hopeful: a ritual of care that acknowledges its own limits. In giving these objects new purpose, I allow them to participate in another form of healing; one that is less about restoring what was and more about witnessing what remains.