Title: AN0BA or 3OSTR3. AN0STR3?

The textile aspect of the piece is paradoxical, being both awkward and pert. The odd gangly legs look sinewy but are also caught mid swing, playful and free. The meat of the body is rotund and appetizing. Like a delicious chicken leg or a haunche of a dog. And the folds of the fabric indicates a vulva. They are undeniably sexy. It is brazenly provocative and comfortably ridiculous all at once. 

This minds me of the journey between mother and crone archetype. Of a woman who no longer requires validation and stands in herself fully. Sexually. Wildly. Wisely and with good humour. Who has created life, who defends life, and has lived enough of of a life to be of correct orientation internally and externally.

And so I wanted the title of the piece to reference these goddess archetypes and mythologies in some way. 

I was drawn to 2 folk tales, both pagan.

The first is the mythology of the Easter bunny, which comes from Germanic pagan lore. There are 2 versions of the goddess Eostre myth, an earlier version of Grimms Ostara. One is that goddess found a bird with frozen wings and saved it by transforming it into a rabbit, which retained the ability to lay eggs. The other is hat a bird who laid beautiful eggs was so proud that Eostre was irked and turned it into a rabbit, but she was so moved by the rabbit’s despair that she allowed it to lay beautiful eggs once a year. The echo of the bunny head in this piece from the other 3D sculpture I created, The Guardian of Whimsy, creates a journey narrative, which feels potent.

The second is Anoba, a Celtic goddess of the hunt, whose main symbol is the Black Forest, the large mountain range located in Baden-Würtemberg, in Germany. However, her symbols also include all forests and rivers. She is also and goddess of childbirth. She is the protector of woods, springs, rivers and wild animals. Abnoba's name is derived from the Brythonic root for river (afon or abon). Further broken down, “abo” means river and “no” means wetness in pro-Celtic components. Therefore, her name means “She of River Wetness.”

The stitched panels of the sculpture are like these stitched together tales. Half real, half not. Beguiling and strange.

Some kind of adaptation of one or both, using numbers for letters to imply the machine element of its creation , will do.

Or maybe I'm being a pretentious idiot and I should just name it after some of my favourite Nottingham graffiti: Toy Cunt.